Nintendo Switch’s Focus On Core Gamers Gets Surprising Support From Investors

06/06/2017 07:35 pm EDT

For years hardcore Nintendo fans would groan whenever they saw a story about the company's investors. Invariably, investors wanted Nintendo to go as broad as possible – forget Mario, Zelda, and Metroid! More party games! Why isn't everything on mobile? Shouldn't Nintendo be making Candy Crush and Angry Birds clones? Not that there's anything wrong with focusing on casual gamers some of the time, but investors seemingly wanted Nintendo to focus exclusively on the low-hanging fruit.

Well, surprisingly, the Nintendo Switch has changed that. While Nintendo is certainly trying to appeal to a wide audience with the Switch, the system is more focused on core gaming experiences than the Wii, and investors have realized that's a good thing. Why? Because more hardcore players actually buy games. Here's financial analyst Atul Goyal's assessment of the situation:

"Switch has turned out to be a stealth hit and is positioned to drive a Wii-type software sales and profits cycle. Nintendo is also actively targeting and courting its core-gamers with a very powerful game line-up in the year one of Switch's launch. We believe this is the most powerful and attractive line-up of any Nintendo game console ever. Switch's appeal to core-gamers (vs. Wii to casual gamers) is likely to drive significantly higher attach-rate and higher earnings than Wii-era."

It will take a couple years for Nintendo's chickens to come home to roost, but Goyal predicts Nintendo will make ¥423 billion (around $4 billion) in profit in 2019. So yeah, this is the time to invest in Nintendo stock, my friends. Unless Switches start exploding in people's hands or something, the stock is only going to go up.

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[via CNBC]

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