Link, the elfin hero of the Legend of Zelda series, has been rescuing the princess for over 30 years and 17 games. With the latest installment, Breath of the Wild, he ventures to a new place: Nintendo’s next-generation console, the portable Nintendo Switch.
After the tepid sales of Nintendo’s Wii U, released for the holiday 2012 season, the Japanese game giant announced in March 2015 that it was working on new hardware that featured a new concept, codenamed NX. In October, via a teaser trailer, it revealed the Switch.
And last week, at an event in Tokyo, the company showcased the features of the device, games coming this year, and the all-important launch details. The Switch will be released March 3 for $300 and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is the flagship game available on day one.
From the very first glimpses of the hardware via that teaser video, it was evident that Nintendo was once more embracing the blue-ocean strategy that has taken the company to uncharted waters far away from its competition in the gaming industry.
“Our competitors are going down their own strategy, Sony and Microsoft, arguably, very similar strategies,” says Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “They need to figure out how they are going to compete with each other, and they need to figure out how they are going to compete with us.”
“From a Nintendo perspective, we believe in creating products and experiences that are unique and really can’t be copied by our competition. That’s our mentality. I don’t really care what our competitors do. We need to do what plays best to our strengths, and what we believe is going to motivate the consumer to engage with our products.”
Read the full article at Fast Company.