The success of Animal Crossing: New Horizons during the COVID-19 pandemic has spurred Nintendo to look at more online games, as revealed by company president Shuntaro Furukawa in a recent interview. Nintendo has traditionally minimized online games in its lineup despite their prevalence on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, but that might change now that the company is offering its own online services.
While the game had been in development for some time, Animal Crossing: New Horizons launched just after lockdowns took hold in March 2020. This set it up to be a staple of the pandemic's early months for Switch owners, since the game encourages both daily check-ins and visits to friends' islands. It functioned as a badly-needed social space, catching on to the point that even now-President Joe Biden's campaign team used it as a form of outreach during the election. The game still enjoys a devoted following.
"As games with long lifespans like Animal Crossing become more accepted, we believe this will have a significant impact on future development," Furukawa told Nikkei in the interview, translated by Nintendo Everything. Critically, the executive added that Nintendo wants to "provide games that can allow communication between friends and families" - its online games have never offered much in the way of chat support, sometimes forcing players to turn to their smartphones and apps like Discord. This contrasts with platforms like the PS5, which even has a microphone built into its DualSense gamepad. Nintendo will have to upgrade both its hardware and software to catch up.
This reluctance to embrace online play may stem from several factors. A service on par with the Xbox network or PlayStation Network requires a massive investment in terms of servers and bandwidth, as well as hiring teams to build out and support features. Games must then be upgraded with online multiplayer, and even with that in place, Nintendo usually aims to cultivate a family-friendly environment. That could be difficult online given the tendency toward swearing, racism, and sexism of player groups in games like Call of Duty. The company may, for example, have to invest more heavily in moderation.
Animal Crossing itself is now under pressure in the life simulator space, not just from older rivals like Stardew Valley but a new wave of imitators like Cozy Grove. Its main advantages at this point are multiplayer and large amounts of gamer-created content, but as rivals close in, Nintendo may find itself under pressure to provide newer, more robust online experiences. That could hypothetically be integral to the company's "Switch Pro" console, rumored to be shipping as soon as this year.
Sources: Nikkei, Nintendo Everything