I forgot to take a picture of him so here he is (in the red) being interviewed by someone else.
I had the chance yesterday at the Toronto stop of the Nintendo Switch preview tour to sit down with Andrew Collins, the Communications Manager at Nintendo of Canada for a chat about the Switch and its launch on March 3rd, here’s what I was able to find out:
Thanks for taking the time to talk with Game Usagi, how long have you worked with Nintendo of Canada?
Andrew: It’s coming up to two years, my anniversary is really memorable because it’s May the 4th and as a Star Wars fan I’m never going to forget that.
That’s actually the anniversary of my girlfriend and I as well, it’s good because it’s hard to forget.
What kind of audience does Nintendo see the Switch appealing to at launch?
Andrew: I think it’s everybody really, because if you look at the games we’ve got available there’s games for all areas of the market. Obviously we’ve got Breath of the Wild, which is an incredible game for the core gamer who’s been waiting for it for a long time. Hopefully when people get a chance to play it they’ll understand why it took as long as it did. It’s one of the things that Nintendo do, we don’t design and release to a specific time-frame, it’s not like we cut it off and are like, “Well is this game good enough?”, we’re like, “Let’s give it some more time.”
Nintendo has announced that over 80 third party partners are currently working on games for the Nintendo Switch, but the games announced so far in the first year have been criticized as being ports of older titles (Skyrim, Rayman Legends) and smaller indie games like Fast RMX. Has Nintendo been working toward getting contemporary multi-platform games to the Switch?
Andrew: One of the things we learned from Wii U is that third party is very, very important and so as we were developing Nintendo Switch there was a lot of effort put onto making sure that we made everything as good as possible for third parties. I’ve got friends who are developers and they really enjoy programming for it. Just purely from a programming perspective it’s a fun thing, we spent a lot of time thinking of how we can make this easier to develop for and that’s proving really fruitful because there are obviously some games we’re looking at today, but there are “80” games that haven’t been announced. So I’m fairly sure there there will be some games that you’re looking for, and your fellow Redditors are also looking for.
The Special and Master editions of Breath of the Wild have been impossible to get in Canada, EB Games had it for preorder online and it sold out within minutes, and that’s all that we’ve seen. Are there any announcements regarding the Canadian availability of the Special and Master Editions and is the Master Edition exclusive to EB Games?
Andrew: We are trying to get more into the country, but as you can imagine the Master Edition just looks so incredible that it’s very hard to get. So we are always trying to get more copies of that for our Canadian gamers. As to the exclusivity, I can’t speak for my retail team about that.
Is the Special Edition coming to Canada?
Andrew: Absolutely.
[Little did I know that within half an hour they would temporarily be available on Amazon.ca while I was busy playing the Nintendo Switch in person.]
There are still a lot of things that haven’t been announced regarding the online capabilities of the Nintendo Switch and there has been particular buzz around the smartphone app and whether all chat and online activities are tied exclusively to the app. Is there a way to say find an online game of Splatoon 2 and chat with friends using the Switch by itself?
Andrew: Well, the app and the live service is quite a bit away so we’re not talking about it at the moment. What we’ll do is when it’s closer we’ll have far more details available at that point.
Has any consideration been given to allowing premium subscribers to keep their monthly free Virtual Console games after the initial month they’re offered without needing to repurchase them?
Andrew: That would be a decision made by people in Japan, so it’s not something that I would be party to.
In Canada, the cost proposition is quite high for purchasing the Switch at launch — if you want the Nintendo Switch console, the Special Edition of Breath of the Wild, one other launch game, an AC adapter to take on the go (if you’re leaving the dock plugged in) and a Pro controller it’s around $750 before tax. How does Nintendo see this fitting into the gaming budget of the average Canadian family and was this taken into consideration when Canadian pricing was decided?
Andrew: The main thing we did when we were looking at the Canadian pricing is we looked at the exchange rate, it’s as simple as that. If you take the exchange rate from the $299 US and just apply it to that it becomes $398 [CDN] I think. So, a lot of the pricing decision was taken out of our hands through the exchange rate. We’re always doing the best we can to keep it affordable within the range, that’s why games like Snipperclips – Cut it Out, together! which I strongly recommend you play are digital-only titles that will be at a cheaper rate. That’s a great game to buy for those people who are looking at buying Switch but from a budget conscious.
Similarly, Amiibo prices have been going up recently, the Yarn Poochy and Wolf Link Amiibo are retailing for $21.99 each. Have price points been decided for the new Breath of the Wild Amiibo in Canada yet?
Andrew: No, not yet. We’re waiting until closer to the launch to determine those prices.
I purchased a Wii U at launch, as I do with every Nintendo system, and I enjoyed many of the games that were available for it including my favourite version of Call of Duty: Black Ops II. Some Wii U owners though, especially ones that bought the system in the last year or two when game releases have been slow feel like they didn’t get enough value out of their purchase. Will there be any Ambassador Program or special deals for Switch gamers who are coming over from the Wii U?
Andrew: Again, unfortunately this is one that I don’t have any knowledge about, so I can’t give an answer.
Do we have to wait until E3 to hear more about Nintendo’s plans for the Switch for this fall/winter?
Andrew: At this point we’re focusing on everything that’s upstairs and then once that’s out of the way then we can start looking towards E3, but for now we’ve brought E3 to Toronto and that’s a pretty good booth up there.
It is! Out of the games that you have on show here today which would you say is your favourite that you’ve played?
Andrew: That’s tough because at E3 last year we had a staff meeting before and they showed us the Zelda trailer for the first time. I know it’s recording but I don’t mind admitting I had a tear in my eye.
When I first booted up our advanced copy of Wind Waker HD, I was actually crying at how good it looked.
Andrew: It’s a beautiful trailer and it’s just such a stunning game — that’s one I’m definitely looking forward to spending a lot of time with, but of the new games that I’ve only played recently I’d say ARMS is my favourite. Whenever I’ve had the opportunity to do some training I’ve always gone to ARMS because it’s — you know, people have said, “Oh, it’s just Wii Sports boxing”, but it’s not remotely. With Wii Sports boxing you’re swinging your arms, but with ARMS there’s a significant amount of strategy. When you get a chance to play it think of driving a car, you don’t drive it like that [he moved his hands separately], you drive it like that [he moved his hands in unison]. Once you’ve learned the basic controls and you get deeper into the intricacy at first you’ll see like “this punch is flying here, okay so that’s what happens”, but now I quite enjoy lunging sideways and leaping and swinging and punching at the same time. I was doing that to a couple people yesterday who had never played before, I kind of felt bad.
[general laughter]
Is there anything else that you think our readers might like to know about the Nintendo Switch’s launch in Canada on March 3rd?
Andrew: It depends, you talk about third parties and there is a significant amount of third party coming — if you read the interviews, those guys are really excited and enjoying the time with Nintendo Switch. I think for me the exciting moment is the first time you take the console out of the dock, just watch how quick it is. I’ve been lucky to demo this quite a few times now and there’s two things I’m always hearing people say: “It’s so fast!” [he motioned taking the Switch out of the dock], it is just like that. And also when you hold a Joy-Con in your hand, because you look at them and you think “Oh, it’s kind of small”, but then you actually hold it in your hand and again it’s the same, it doesn’t feel small. It looks small, but when you’re using it — I’ve got big hands and I have absolutely no problem. I think the guys in Japan did a fantastic job designing that to fit with everything else that they did when you consider all of the tech that’s inside there.
Another game I’d recommend you try is 1-2 Switch and try the Ball Count. That’s probably the best demo that we’ve got for the HD rumble feature. It’s awesome because I was with someone yesterday showing it to them for the first time and you can see that moment when it really feels like — I had one go “Are you sure? Is something loose in here?” It’s uncanny, it really is. I’m looking forward to once developers really start to exploit this great tech, it’s got some real possibilities.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to us.