Nintendo President on Joy-Con Drift, Games Lineup, and Nintendo Directs

Nintendo held a June 2020 investor’s meeting for the latest quarter, and Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa and General Manager Shinya Takahashi touched upon several topics during the Q&A section of the meeting. Most important among them were the ongoing Joy-Con drift lawsuit in the US, if the company’s lineup of games has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and Nintendo Directs.

Here are the highlights:

On the topic of the Joy-Con drift lawsuit:

Shuntaro Furukawa, President: “Regarding the Joy-Cons, I would like to apologize deeply for causing trouble for those affected. We continuously work towards improving our products, but the Joy-Con products are the offending item in a lawsuit in the United States; as the proceedings of the case are still ongoing, I would like to refrain from replying in detail as to how we are going to address this.”

On the topic of the Nintendo game lineup for the next quarter:

Shinya Takahashi, General Manager: “Regarding the development of our products, some elements have been delayed due to the impact of the novel coronavirus, but at present, none of the games set to release in this fiscal year have been affected. However, if the coronavirus pandemic continues on long-term, or becomes more serious, there is a possibility that the software may not be released as planned.”

On the topic of the missing general Nintendo Direct:

Furukawa: “If it were any other year, we would have been able to show our games off at the E3 venue, but due to the novel coronavirus, not only E3 but many other industry events were all canceled, and our company has no plans on holding a large scale event of our own. In order to provide the latest information on our games, we have adopted a more flexible approach, so I hope you can please wait a little longer to know more. Recently, our company announced the latest fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and The Pokemon Company also released information on new Pokemon games, and we will continue to reveal info on our upcoming games going forward.”

During the investor’s meeting proper, Furukawa also touched upon Nintendo Switch production returning to normal over this summer, and you can read more about this in our previous report here.