The prospect of Nintendo getting into the virtual reality business has been around for some time, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. At Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit in Los Angeles, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime spoke on the company’s outlook and how it sees virtual reality at this moment.
“It’s technology that we have been looking at literally tens of years,” Fils-Aime said. “There’s not a lot of experiences yet that are truly fun.”
Reggie took the opportunity to point out that Nintendo has begun to creep into markets that in the past seemed like an impossibility. Nintendo has established a foothold in the mobile game market with Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes (and more mobile games on the way) and has delved into augmented reality with Pokemon Go . “We have a lot of experience with AR. The potential for AR is here and now,” said Fils-Aime.
The question of Nintendo diving into VR has come up on numerous occasions. Back in early 2016, before the Nintendo Switch was given an official name, the company was asked about VR in a shareholdings briefing. Nintendo reps stated that they were looking into it but did not provide further details.
Months later, Nintendo Switch patents showing a virtual reality headset were found, indicating the company has set itself up to dive into the VR space if they deem it necessary.
And then there was the rumor that Nintendo pushed the release of the Switch back to 2017 because they wanted to make the console VR-capable. Those rumors have since been debunked with the actual release of the Switch.
Despite patents that didn’t amount to anything and debunked rumors, Nintendo will continually be asked about virtual reality as long as the platform continues to grow, and it’s something the company will have to consider moving forward.
So what do you think of Nintendo going into virtual reality? What Nintendo games would work great with the platform? Let us know in the comments section below.
