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Nintendo's Got a Big Secret Based On $800 Million R&D Spending In 2020
Nintendo released its annual financial report, detailing the company's fiscal year in 2020, but there's an increase in spending that makes it seem like the industry giant could have a big secret. Nintendo releases its financial report every year, breaking down the company's spending across its various internal departments, but these reports don't necessarily detail the scope of that spending and, in particular, the exact details of what the money has been spent on.
It's been a productive fiscal year for Nintendo based simply on the company's external standing with the gaming demographic, as Nintendo Switch sales remained impressive throughout late 2019 and early 2020. The company has been enjoying a period of time where it seems like the first-party Switch titles it releases can do no wrong, with Animal Crossing: New Horizons an extreme example of software that's outperformed expectation. On top of this, 2019's holiday season saw the Nintendo Switch Lite became a hot commodity thanks to its more affordable price, with some families opting to become multiple Switch homes as a result.
The potential for Nintendo to have a big secret is based on how much the company reported spending on research and development. The fiscal report - which was broken down at length by TechRaptor - represents a massive increase in spending on R&D on a year-over-year basis. What that could mean is that Nintendo is working on something truly exciting as a secret project, whether that's a console like the much-anticipated Nintendo Switch Pro or new hardware more in the vein of the technology that supports Ring Fit Adventure.
There's also the possibility that Nintendo could be producing a hybrid of the Switch and a more traditional handheld system. While the Switch Lite already functions similarly to that, the Nintendo 3DS is finally being put to rest after a long tenure on the market, and its absence would make Nintendo a one device company. Historically, that's a strange position for Nintendo, though it's also possible that the company simply views the Switch and Switch Lite as two different devices. There are a slew of possibilities, however, and not all of them are exciting - it's possible Nintendo's R&D costs this fiscal year were simply aggregate inflations based on more software development time, new hardware being introduced, and other similarly predictable expenditures.
The fun angle on this, though, is that Nintendo has a big secret project stashed away somewhere that is ready to wow consumers in the future. It's not like the company needs it - the Nintendo Switch is still very much a current-gen console and was never going to be a device that competes with the PS5 and Xbox Series X on power, so it's not like it needs significant upgrades in that department. Still, the fact that Nintendo is doing so well lately is precisely why the notion it could have a secret project is so exciting - there have been so many hits, and few, if any, misses, that whatever is being hypothetically worked on in that scenario is likely to be something worth paying attention to.
