With the Switch 2 launching this year, 2025 has become one of the biggest years in Nintendo’s history. The original Switch was released in 2017, replacing the Nintendo Wii and later the Wii U as the flagship console, and it transformed handheld gaming.
The Switch 2 has been released at the beginning of a new era for gaming, with artificial intelligence (AI) already making an impact in the industry. Forbes reports that games featuring AI-driven, adaptive interactions had a 20% boost in player retention, directly contributing to increased revenue and lifetime value. With Nintendo just releasing a new console, AI will have an impact on how the company creates games and how players interact with their titles. In this post, we will cover how Nintendo could use AI and the impact AI will have on the company in this new gaming landscape.
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Nintendo’s Current AI Position
While the biggest companies are investing heavily in AI, Nintendo is approaching the technology with much more caution. Speaking in a shareholder Q&A, Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa said, “AI-like technologies have long been used — for example, to control the movements of opponent characters — so I believe that game development and AI technology have always had a close relationship. Generative AI, which is becoming a big topic recently, can be used in creative ways.”
Generative AI is described by MongoDB as having the ability to perform tasks like classification, sentence completion, the generation of images or voice, and the creation of synthetic (artificially generated) data. In gaming, companies are using it to help them create in-game characters and quickly develop new environments. While Furukawa supported the use of AI, he also noted that “[Nintendo] will work to continue delivering value that is unique to Nintendo and cannot be created by technology alone,” suggesting that the company will put human creativity at the center of game development.
How AI Could Impact Nintendo Game Development
With the Switch 2 estimated to be ten times more powerful than the original in terms of graphics alone, game developers will look to create new titles that take full advantage of its new power. While Nintendo may hold back on using AI, game developers making titles for the new console could use Generative AI for faster game development, personalized player experiences, and new kinds of games and interactions. For example, new Nintendo games could use AI to produce procedurally generated narratives where the story shifts uniquely for every player or where AI adapts difficulty levels automatically based on the player’s performance.
How AI in the Gaming Industry Will Impact Nintendo
While many have praised Nintendo’s commitment to retaining human creativity as much as possible, AI could have a major impact in the coming years due to how the company’s competitors use the technology. Microsoft and Sony are both investing heavily in the development of AI-powered consoles that will redefine the gaming landscape.
These new consoles will likely be released while the Switch 2 is still the flagship console for Nintendo, and the company could find itself losing out as gamers demand AI-capable machines and AI games that enhance their gaming experience. For example, a Medium article on AI-powered consoles outlines how using “dedicated AI accelerators, consoles can handle machine learning tasks in real time without compromising graphical performance. This means better frame rates, more advanced physics simulations, and more immersive AI-driven interactions, all without overloading the system”. It is not just the gaming experience that will be improved, but also the ability to stream and play online games.
AI-driven upscaling techniques, such as Nvidia’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR, will allow games to be rendered at lower resolutions and then enhanced in real time. As a result, this would ensure smooth performance even on lower-end hardware. While Nintendo doesn’t prioritize graphics as much as Sony and Microsoft, if the Switch 2 isn’t as compatible as its AI-enhanced competitors, this could have a major impact on their audience base.
AI is the future of gaming and will bring about huge changes to the industry. With Nintendo currently taking a more muted position on the technology, it has won plaudits from those worried about AI being used too much in game development. However, with more developers embracing AI in the coming years, Nintendo could quickly find itself falling behind, which would have a huge impact on the company.
