Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé has shared his doubt about how long it will take before Virtual Reality can become mainstream.
Such conversation came as part of a wider discussion about what the company’s position is on the emergent technology, to which Fils-Aimé explained that it “has to be at a point where it can be mainstream.”
While the wider industry is excited about the new possibilities afforded by such devices, Nintendo is concerned that support so far is only offering “short snacks of entertainment.”
“So, here is Nintendo’s take on any new technology. For us, we want to make sure that technology is mainstream, we want to make sure that the technology represents strong value to the consumer. And so as an example, there was a lot of gyroscopic technology out there in the marketplace, but it took the Wii and the Wii Remote to really make it mainstream,” Fils-Aimé discussed with Bloomberg.
“Even going all the way back to the Nintendo DS, that was the first electronic device that really made extensive use of a touchscreen. So, the way that we look at VR, or even AR which we do have within our Nintendo 3DS system, for us the technology has to be at a point where it can be mainstream.
“And then it takes content creating companies like us, to really make things that the consumer wants to experience, that they want to jump into the particular technology – that’s how we move it forward. We’ve been looking at the VR space since the days of the Virtual Boy. With us, we want to make sure that our next content is going to be mainstream, mass-market, approachable, and when something like VR is at that point you can expect Nintendo to be there.”
Asked as to when he anticipated that would be, Fils-Aimé replied: “Well, I have to say I haven’t seen the latest that’s here at this show, but I have seen just about every other VR experience that companies are working on. I have to say, in my judgement, I think VR is a bit further out there for mainstream, mass-market applications, and applications that consumers can invest a lot of time in, versus short snacks of entertainment.”
