Crypto diehards have long extolled the possibilities for collaboration between NFTs, the Metaverse, and gaming. Now, it would seem that one gaming giant can see the same.

Recent comments from Shuntaro Furukawa – President of Nintendo – indicate that he sees “great potential” in the metaverse. This comes at a time of increasing popularity of the concept, while other major tech companies onboard the trend.

Animal Crossing VS The Metaverse

Furukawa shared his thoughts on Nintendo’s (NTDOY) relationship with the Metaverse during a Q&A session on Thursday. When asked for his thoughts on the new digital reality, he showed interest in its relationship with Nintendo’s Animal Crossing.

“The metaverse is attracting the attention of many companies around the world, and we believe that it has great potential,”said Furukawa, according to an English Q&A translation from VGC. “In addition, when the metaverse is mentioned in the media, software such as Animal Crossing is sometimes cited as an example, and in this sense, we are interested in it.”

To clarify, the “metaverse” is a “massive scaled and interoperable network of real-time rendered 3D virtual worlds,” as defined by Metaverse primer. Some also use it to define an ‘inevitable’ future where our virtual lives dominate our real-lives. Promoters envision it as being powered by NFTs and programmable blockchains like Ethereum.

By comparison, Animal Crossing is a game where players govern a town as mayor, customizing and attracting animal villagers to it. In many ways, it simply resembles a peaceful version of real life, but in a virtual world – like the metaverse ideal. If the franchise’s 70 million+ all-time sales have shown anything, it’s that there is high demand for alternate reality games.

Though intrigued by the concept, Furukawa added that there are no approaches to the Metaverse Nintendo has planned right now. “We have to think about how to provide fresh surprises and fun,” he said, adding that they’re yet to “define” what sorts of surprises the metaverse can provide to customers.

Tech Companies Leaping Into the Metaverse

Facebook famously rebranded to “Meta” late last year, reflecting the company’s shifting focus towards the metaverse. Announcing the eventual change of its stock ticker to MVRS (now expected in 1Q22), it also formed a team to work on the metaverse months prior.

Other gaming giants are getting involved too. Microsoft recently acquired Activision for over $60 billion, framing the move as “building blocks for the metaverse”.

Photo by nicolas perez on Unsplash