Game company Nintendo recently shared their thoughts on the possibility of video game delays for the Nintendo Switch due to the pandemic.
Nintendo predicts a lot of delays
The Japanese firm anticipates a lot of disruption in development and release of first-party software due to the COVID-19 pandemic. President Shuntaro Furukawa did reveal some good news that the production of the Switch console has been improving despite the pandemic. He confessed that there were some slowdowns on production last March and April.
Furukawa warns that if this pandemic is prolonged or worsens further, the company might not be able to meet its 19 million unit sales forecast that they reveal for this fiscal year.
The president also warned that the first-party releases will be delayed due to the work from home regimen. While effective, the method is making it difficult for developers to release the titles as scheduled.
Since there are indeed big limitations on what can be done from home, we do think this will have a large impact. But even so, we are gradually gaining experience in assessing what can and cannot be done remotely, and in determining how much progress we can make on the work we are able to do from home.
Please be aware that the impact on game development in terms of both hardware and software may potentially increase as the amount of time spent working remotely increases.
So expect some delays on particular upcoming titles. Some might actually get released on time, but most likely others will not have the same fate. This is just our current reality.
Source: GamesIndustry.biz