During a Q&A with investors, Shuntaro Furakawa, Nintendo representative director and president, warned that some games the company plans to release this fiscal year – including those not-yet-announced – could be affected by the COVID-19 global pandemic “if the impact is prolonged or worsens further” due to developers’ work-at-home environments.
“… Many employees of Nintendo and of our partner companies are currently working from home,” said Furakawa. “And the difference in work environments between home and office may make it difficult to release titles as currently planned, should the impact be prolonged.”
Furakawa admitted that working from home affected Japanese developers in particular because “[Nintendo] did not already have a remote development environment in place.” Even though he said that everyone is getting better at working from home, the impact on game development “may potentially increase as the amount of time spent working remotely increases.”
In regards to hardware, Furakawa made similarly cautioned comments. Although Nintendo was able to rebound sufficiently from earlier manufacturing and shipment setbacks due to the pandemic, and it expects to meet its forecast, this could change if things worsen.
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