Nintendo is encouraging mature titles on the Switch

Nintendoes what Nintendon’t usually do

We’re all well aware of Nintendo’s bent towards making games for all ages. Nearly every game developed by Nintendo is squeaky-clean, garnering the company a reputation for only having family-friendly titles on their consoles. However, it looks like someone out there is tired of that stigma – namely, Nintendo. 

In a report yesterday by The Wall Street Journal, (note: there’s a paywall) several game developers said that Nintendo is actively encouraging them to put mature games out for the Switch. 

When Nintendo says mature, they mean mature. Inti Creates Co., the company behind the Gal*Gun series (you know, those weeb railshooters that have you shoot classmates with pheromones) said they were bringing Gal*Gun 2 to the Switch. The Chief Executive of Inti Creates, Takuya Aizu, said he was unsure if Nintendo would even want their game on the platform. 

“I thought it wouldn’t be possible to release such a game for the Switch, but surprisingly, Nintendo gave me positive feedback,” said Aizu, talking to The Wall Street Journal. 

This isn’t an isolated incident either: several other developers came out of talks with Nintendo bearing the same sentiment. Nintendo isn’t just allowing mature games on the Switch; it is actively pursuing them to beef up their third-party catalogue. 

In the Wall Street Journal report, Nintendo said that they wanted to have variety in terms of both genre and content on their console, saying, “As with books, television and movies, different content is meant for different audiences.”

Nintendo has changed their stance on a lot of things this past year, but their position on mature games is, to me, the least surprising. Bayonetta 2 only exists today because Nintendo stepped in at the last moment to save it, and that was three years ago. In the near future we’ll have versions of Doom, Skyrim, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and more on the Switch, something we never would have got from the Nintendo we grew up with.

The times are-a-changing folks, and Nintendo doesn’t want to stay stuck in the dark forever. Unless it concerns online play. Or how to manufacture consoles. 

In Switch, Nintendo Embraces Games With a Rougher Edge for New Console [The Wall Street Journal]