Reggie Fils-Aimé: "Nintendo Will Never Compete Directly with PlayStation" | Switch 2 AAA Future

Reggie Fils-Aimé is all too familiar with the line-up of Nintendo titles, and many of their console launches over the years. From the launch of the GameCube, through the launch of the record-breaking Nintendo Switch, Fils-Aimé had been there for all of them, until the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. “I’ve been observing the launch like a fan,” he tells The Game Business during his interview.

As Fils-Aimé watches from outside the company from a fan’s perspective, old habits die-hard. With his year of business with Nintendo, he finds himself looking at things critically when it comes to the company he had spent over 15 years working for.

Will Nintendo ever compete with PlayStation? Fils-Aimé comments on the console wars stating; “Nintendo will never position itself as a direct competitor to PlayStation.”

With AAA titles making their way over to the more powerful Switch 2, Assassin’s Creed, Cyberpunk 2077, and the now mandated Call of Duty, titles like these couldn’t possibly run well on the previous Switch generation, just ask NetherRealm about Mortal Kombat. But now, with the Switch 2 seemingly being much more powerful, large AAA titles stand a far better chance of running the way developers intended them to.

“Whether it’s Resident Evil, whether it’s Assassin’s Creed, as long as those games play well and look good on Switch 2, I believe there’s a fan base that’ll buy it.” Reggie Fils-Aimé

When asked about the previous generation compared to the Switch 2, could things be different for Switch 2 owners? “I absolutely believe it could be,” Fils-Aimé says. “But let’s be clear, Nintendo, in my opinion, will never position themselves as a direct competitor to PlayStation. It’s not in their DNA. It’s not how they think about the business opportunity. However, would they welcome some of the latest core gamer-type of content, whether it’s the latest Assassin’s Creed or Call of Duty, onto their platform? Absolutely. Do I think that there’s a player base there for those games? Absolutely. The key, and this is something that the team there thinks about every day, is making sure that third-party developers have the tool sets so that they have the full capability to bring the best of their games onto Switch 2.

“Nintendo, as it thinks about its hardware, it doesn’t think through how I’m going to get the absolute latest graphics chip, the latest processing chip, that’s not how they think about it. But the chip set of Switch 2 can do quite a lot. And so, it’s in the middleware, it’s in the education to the third-party.

“One of the things that always amazed me, Nintendo developers are so efficient with their games. Big games like Tears of the Kingdom, when you look at the size of the game, the actual file size is about half of what another developer would do. And it’s just in the efficiency that Nintendo is able to get out of its systems, and that efficiency is what they need to share with third-party developers so that their best content… maybe not the latest version, but, you know, half a step behind, could make its way onto Switch 2 and be quite successful.”

Fils-Aimé continues: “Whether it’s Resident Evil, whether it’s Assassin’s Creed, as long as those games play well and look good on Switch 2, I believe there’s a fan base that’ll buy it.”

Nintendo has always done things the Nintendo way. It’s worked for years and will seemingly continue to work for them in the foreseeable future. However, when it comes to third-party AAA titles, is it enough for the fans is the bigger question. Let us know over in our Discord. Will you play AAA titles on the Switch 2? Or go to the more powerful options, PS5, Xbox and PC?