Nintendo: China Is Too Tough To Enter

At every single fiscal briefing, there would always be one investor who asks Nintendo when they plan to officially enter mainland China and start selling their Nintendo Switch consoles there.

In previous Q&A sessions, Nintendo would say they are exploring opportunities on how they could go about doing it, but this time they’ve changed their tune. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said while they’d like to try going into China, he said there are a “variety of issues” standing in Nintendo’s way that won’t make their entry into China easy.

Furukawa also mentioned while the games market in China is very huge, the “market for dedicated video game platforms is small”, so the rewards may not be worth the effort.

See his full comments below.

I cannot say anything new at this time about our plans to start our business in China with Nintendo Switch or smart-device applications. We are continuing to look into a business opportunity in China, but the reality is that there are a variety of issues that give us the impression that it will not be easy to do. And although the market for games in China is incredibly huge, the market for dedicated video game platforms is small, so even if we were to enter into China, the challenges we would face there certainly would not be simple ones. Even so, I would very much like to try and see how receptive the Chinese market would be to Nintendo IP.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.