Nintendo told shareholders that it "researched" advanced technologies like 5G and cloud streaming, but explained that it wouldn't just "look for trends" for their sake. At the 79th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, Nintendo representatives were directly asked how the company would react to recent advances in VR, 5G, and "alliances between rivals in cloud gaming." While Sony and Microsoft's new generation of consoles placed a lot of importance on streaming and Google entered the streaming arena with its own Stadia later this year, there were fears that Nintendo was "a bit slow." to follow the competition.
Follow the competition
However, the fact that Nintendo does not promote any projects for these new technologies does not mean that it completely ignores them. In response to this question, Shigeru Miyamoto assured that the company was working on new technologies such as 5G, VR, and streaming "and experimented with them in various ways." As for cloud streaming, Miyamoto believes it will be "more prevalent in the future," but added that he didn't doubt they would still be fun games because they were running locally and not in the cloud. "Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa recalled that while Nintendo cannot see all games becoming cloud gaming so soon, he is aware that it "must keep up with the changing environment."
Buzzwords
Nintendo Chairman and CEO Ko Shiota zeroed in squarely on the latest buzzword: 5G. "5G can send a large amount of data without latency. We are aware that this technology is attracting more and more attention, and Nintendo is also looking into the problem." However, Shiota added that Nintendo is not "just chasing technology trends." . Just like in the case of VR and cloud streaming, Nintendo will not be jumping on the 5G bandwagon, but thinking about how the technology will be applied to gaming and what new experiences and games we can bring to consumers through this app. "Not only that, cost will be a major factor in the advancement of 5G. According to Shiota, "it is difficult to use even exceptional technology if the cost is too high, so we will continue to study the cost of new technologies in depth." We already know Nintendo is experimenting with cloud game streaming on the Switch in Japan (via Kotaku), but this requires a high-quality WiFi connection - 5G connections would definitely stream the Switch, but it seems likely Nintendo won't. chase until demand is good enough.With 5G just getting installed in a handful of cities around the world and still having some issues with young people, it seems reasonable to say that Nintendo still has time to experiment more.