 Hey everyone, welcome back to Nintendo Prime. We have a bunch of stories for you to get to from Nintendo's investor meeting last night. We obviously already talked about sales data and, you know, Metroid Dread selling 2.74 million and a bunch of other sales updates that you could check out in our prior video that I will link down in the description that we popped out at 2 a.m. Now though, we have additional information from Nintendo about their current and future plans from the president and CEO Shintaro Furukawa. So we're going to get into that here in a moment and with a bunch of stories. But before we do, I want to remind you, we are giving away a Nintendo Switch, OLED, a PlayStation 5, and an Xbox Series X, which I think is a really great giveaway. Considering the climate we are in and how hard these systems still are to get here in 2022, if you would like a chance to win one of those platforms because you will get to choose which one you get, be sure to head down to the description or the pinned comment and use our Gleam.io link. All right, let's just kick right off into something that isn't from their data, isn't from Nintendo's way of doing things, but is important because this is happening every Thursday. We have launch sales for Pokemon Legends Arceus in Japan and my lord, these sales are insane. So Pokemon Legends Arceus is officially the second highest launch in terms of unit sales of physical games in Japan in Nintendo Switch history. It moved 1,424,657 physical copies last week. This only trails Animal Crossing New Horizons launch, which sold roughly 1.88 million units. This does beat out the previous number two, which was actually Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl last month, which sold 1.39 million, but it topped that and that was just like two months ago. Two months ago, wow, like this is incredible to see the sales of this game. Interestingly enough, the Nintendo Switch itself did not actually move over 100,000 units, which you might say, when you have the second largest launch in history, why wouldn't it be another 200,000 plus Switch unit sale? And that's because according to Famitsu, the Nintendo Switch from the light version all the way through OLED was completely sold out in Japan. You could not even find a unit if you wanted to over the weekend. This does actually fall in line with things that Shintaro Furukawa warned us about before we even got to 2022. Back in December, he did a statement warning that he knows Nintendo will be unable to keep up with demand for Nintendo Switch entering into 2022. And sure enough, he actually ended up addressing this during the investor meeting last night. Nintendo is still unable to do it. They are having massive supply shortages and just issues all along their manufacturing chain that they are trying really, really hard to take care of, but it's just such a hard thing to deal with as everyone in the industry is dealing with shortages. But yeah, Nintendo is just trying the best they can. In fact, Nintendo actually had to lower their forecast. Again, this is like the third time they've had to lower their forecast for the number of Switch units being sold. They originally said they were gonna sell like 25 million and then they redecorated it to 24. And now they're going with 23 million for the current fiscal year ending March 31st of 2022. But again, this is because they can't make enough They literally are physically incapable of providing more units than they are currently and that is impacting sales That doesn't mean that it won't actually help switch have a longer life because obviously out of stock things tend to have longer shelf Lifes when they're already in high demand that being said that's a really really good story and really good sales for Pokemon Legends Arceus we already know it beat out the launch sales of Animal Crossing new horizons in the UK We now know it's the second best launch ever in the Japan So this is going to be really interesting to see what the figures end up being here in the United States No, Nintendo did not give us sales updates on Pokemon Legends Arceus last night Although they did tell us that they are Extremely pleased with the sales and that Nintendo did have trepidation because this was a mainline Pokemon game that only had you know one version instead of two and they thought that would actually hurt sales and Nintendo basically said it doesn't appear like it hurt sales, but again, we don't actually have official figures at this point And we won't until Sometime, you know basically the next you know fiscal update, which will be the end of year one. So yeah, that's really really cool Good for Pokemon Legends Arceus. It's obviously doing incredible We'll see if it continues to do incredible week over week or if it's gonna see massive drop-offs Like prior Pokemon games have seen now our next story This is one that is making a lot of headlines this morning and has a lot of people in panic all over social media Because we already know there's been a lot of backlash over NFTs in the marketplace Team 17 was gonna do this worm-based and NFT thing because a fan backlash they backed out Troy Baker was supporting These voice work NFTs and then because of fan backlash and then obviously that NFT company. He was supporting getting busted stealing voice work Yeah, it just it's become a whole mess where essentially there's a massive Backlash on any NFT thing talked about in gaming by the way There are fringe benefits of certain types of NFTs But in general gamers are just not receptive at all and have been really rejecting it So this story making headlines isn't surprising because Nintendo didn't outright reject NFTs It's really interesting as they were asked about this in their investor Q&A meeting because obviously this is an emerging technology and One of their investors asked Shintaro for a kawa. How do you think about the metaverse and NFT? No, the metaverse is the general supposed to be web 3.0 thing You know, I'm not even sure exactly where it is and I'm pretty tech savvy It's just ideas of what people think the future is going to be when you're wearing like a virtual headset to enjoy things I I don't know it sounds a little insane to me But apparently that is what Facebook and other other companies are pushing for And here's what Shintaro for a kawa answered with we do have interest in this area We feel the potential in this area, but we wonder what joy can provide in this area Oh, can we provide in this area and this is difficult to define right now? And what's interesting is that David Gibson who was at this meeting and reported on this noted that Nintendo was more talking about the metaverse than NFTs. They didn't dismiss the NFT part of it But it seemed that the language was inferring the metaverse that being said obviously then this made massive headlines today Nintendo's considering NFTs Nintendo's looking into NFT technology yada yada yada, which isn't technically a lie Nintendo did not outright dismiss NFTs But that second line is more important than the first the first obviously being they have interest in this area Boom headlines everywhere massive headlines lots of get people to click Heck we did it in this video. We did it But we did it because we want to draw attention to that second line and that second line is but we wonder what joy We can provide in this area. So what they're saying is We don't really know what we can even provide the NFTs or the metaverse We don't really know because we don't want to provide anything if it's not joyful So while they are considering NFTs, well, they are considering the metaverse It's all in context of can we bring joy to the space and if we can't we don't want to do it This doesn't sound like a company that's diving headfirst in the NFTs in the metaverse. It sounds like one that's just we're aware of it We're not dismissing it, but we don't really even know what we can do in this space It doesn't sound like a company that's really taking it that serious They're just obviously not going to quickly dismiss it because if this does become the next big thing and it's huge Nintendo will want to get involved if they can find a way to do so. So yeah, this is just a pretty standard stock standard Answer what did we expect Nintendo to say? No, we are not looking into any of this stuff. We have no interest Nintendo is just being what a corporation is supposed to do. You don't dismiss anything Yeah, you mentioned that you're considering it and you just move on with your day There really isn't much of a headline here, but because it's such a controversial topic It's obviously got a lot of people in a tizzy. I would say don't worry about it until Nintendo actually does something Remember Nintendo was really slow to get into microtransactions really slow to get into paid DLC So Nintendo still really slow to get into localized voice chat on the switch So let's just be obvious. You'll be honest here NFTs metaverse deals a lot with online Nintendo's always behind in online. That's in this case a positive I think Nintendo would probably the last video game company to even attempt to do NFTs So just keep that in the back of your mind. I don't think we have much to worry about at least in that next decade It's gonna be a while before Nintendo would even Attempt to do something like create an NFT for their video games. This next story is just kind of an interesting note so back in the latter half of 2020 Shintaro Furukawa noted that the switch was entering the middle of its life cycle and he mentioned this in 2020 in 2021 he stated plainly at the very beginning of the year switches in the middle of its life cycle Here we are in January of 2022 and he continues to say that Nintendo switches in the middle of its life cycle That would state that the middle of the life cycle was as long as the beginning which I suppose makes sense Three years for the beginning of the life cycle three years for the middle of the life cycle And then I guess three years for the end So this would be the last year of the middle and then there'd be three more years ending in 2025 I I mean at least that's based on the math. He's using however I'm not sure Nintendo has an exact year in mind that they're gonna replace switch But I want to go to his exact language on this because there's something he says and something he says about next gen as well Then I find fascinating So first he says Nintendo is in the middle of its life cycle and the momentum going into this year is good The switch is ready to break a pattern of our past consoles That's how momentum weakening in their sixth year on the market and grow further. So he's basically saying look Normally the sixth year is the death knell for every platform. We have we don't think that's gonna be the case with switch We think switch is completely healthy and still Literally in its peak and in its prime. So that's the way that Nintendo is viewing it and you could tell by their software lineup That's exactly the way they're viewing it. They are not slowing down They are increasing their output and potentially have the largest software year yet coming for switch now that being said They were asked about something that wasn't really about the next gen system But Shintaro Furukawa answered it in a very next-gen way and it says how do you think about the 98 million versus what your next console is? And the 98 million is in reference to a point that came up in the investors meeting where he mentioned Shintaro Furukawa mentioned They have 98 million active Nintendo switch users now There's a hundred and three hundred and four million total switches sold But obviously that those extra millions are probably just extra switches like people who own multiple switches like I do 98 million switches are actually active, which is a massive Active consumer base. Holy crap. I had no idea. There was that many active users. That's insane And he goes in Shintaro Furukawa answers this, you know, because obviously investors are worried How are you gonna translate all those active users to your next system? We don't really, you know, this is obviously awesome today But how are you gonna, you know, we don't want we you to happen again Basically, that's what investors, we don't want we you to happen again So here's what Shintaro Furukawa said into the six-year switch and we are maintaining momentum We are looking at how to expand and grow this 100 million users leading into the next-gen device And the way it was worded according to David Gibson was heavily hinted the next-gen device will be backwards compatible. Now backwards compatibility is obviously a massive win for Nintendo gamers if it does happen It also means Nintendo could drop their next-gen hardware sooner than later. It could be 2023 2024 They don't have to wait for the end of the switch life cycle to do it because any games that would be made for Switch could Literally just be played on the new system without much fuss and without much hassle So yeah, this is really cool that it seems that Nintendo is hinting towards this way I remember this is just an interpretation from David Gibson who was at the meeting But he was literally there he could speak Japanese natively he doesn't miss quotes and mistranslate Nintendo very often for this stuff So I'm gonna trust David Gibson on this that Nintendo was referencing. Hey look We we know what we're doing with this next-gen platform backwards compatible We're gonna be able to bring that user base over Because they're not gonna have to worry about losing their existing library. So that is Yes, that's a big win for gamers in general I want every system they be this way PlayStation 5 is backwards compatible Xbox series X is backwards compatible And that really helps in the transition This is why there's a hundred and eleven active PlayStation users Well, yeah, because you can combine PlayStation 5 and PS4 together because it should just be a natural transition You shouldn't really lose any of your user base as PlayStation 4 users slowly transition over to PlayStation 5 And the last part of all this is dealing with the massive Acquisitions happening across the industry. We obviously know what Microsoft and Sony have been up to we just talked about it last night on our podcast But here's what's interesting Nintendo not prompted to answer this question Shantara Furukawa just brought it up himself in talking to his investors because obviously he knows investors are gonna be very curious if Nintendo is going to get involved in acquisitions. So Here's what Shantara Furukawa said in response to hey, you know what? Will Nintendo actually get involved in making massive acquisitions Shantara Furukawa had this to say our brand was built upon Products crafted with dedication by our employees and having a large number of people who don't possess Nintendo DNA in our group would not be a plus to the company. So in other words what he's saying is hey We're not gonna buy out Capcom or Konami or You know those of Japanese studios We're not gonna go head in and buy out like take two or anything crazy because Bottom line is we don't want a lot of outside influences Nintendo has survived heavily on Sort of ignoring what's happening in the world and just focusing inward on what they do We actually did a video on this before where Nintendo's best strategy So far has been to bet on themselves and this is just Reaffirmation from the president of the company that Nintendo is going to continue to bet on themselves And they don't think that bringing a lot of outside influences in is really beneficial to the company It can only serve to hurt the way Nintendo does business now I do think there are some things Nintendo can learn from outside companies It will be nice that they partner with an outside company to help make their online infrastructure I think that would be a generally good policy to practice But obviously bringing in other massive acquisitions that literally don't do things the way Nintendo does Contract employees that are temporary and fired after a month and all this other stuff that Nintendo doesn't believe in I think would hurt the way Nintendo operates I think Nintendo has seen this with retro studios over the years Or they are struggling to cope with the fact that Western developing culture is a lot different than Nintendo's culture And there's been a lot of turnover at retro studios and Nintendo's just not used to that They don't have a lot of turnover at their Japan studios monolith stuff doesn't have a ton of turnover next level games so far Anyways, doesn't have a lot of turnover and that's in Canada So they are struggling a little bit it even wanting to consider buying yet another studio that doesn't operate the way Nintendo does and having that directly influence the way Nintendo does things when they already don't like the way other companies do things So Nintendo is very happy with the way they are and why shouldn't they be they've been able to sell a Wii U Port Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at the tune of 43 million to become the best-selling Mario Kart game of all time in the best-selling Like 43 million units in less than five years on a platform that it's just a port like think about that for a moment That's the kind of company Nintendo is they can sell their ports at high numbers They could sell their new games at high numbers. They could sell they could break records with every franchise That's the way Nintendo is they don't feel like they need to worry what other people are doing because other companies are sort of jealous of what It's going on at Nintendo like would game pass exist at Microsoft if they had the software and harbor sales Nintendo does It's a very fair question to ask because Nintendo is extremely profitable at what they're doing Anyways that being said I am Nathan Neuroville Jantz from Nintendo Prime I want to thank you guys all for tuning in hopefully you learned something today from the president of Nintendo and Yeah, I'll catch you in that next video