To our great surprise, Nintendo recently blew the dust off Animal Crossing: New Horizons with an update. This came alongside a similar update for Splatoon 3, with both updates made available on Switch and Switch 2.
Now, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa has explained why the company revisited these older titles, but it isn't because there are any plans to continue to support them long term. Instead, these updates were to keep the fanbase going while the Switch 2 library is a little sparse, giving them something to play if they upgrade.
As spotted by Animal Crossing World, Furukawa was asked about the reasoning behind the Animal Crossing and Splatoon updates as part of a recent financial briefing. Specifically, a shareholder asked the company president to explain the business rationale behind the updates.
"In January, in addition to the free update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons, we also released Animal Crossing: New Horizons Nintendo Switch 2 Edition," Furukawa says (machine translated from Japanese). "Since the update, many customers have been playing the game, including those who had stepped away from it for a while and have now returned. We’re also seeing an increase in people playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons on...
