The Nintendo Switch won’t have a web browser when it’s released on March 3rd. “Since all of our efforts have gone toward making Switch an amazing dedicated video game platform, it will not support it, at least at launch,” Nintendo president and CEO Tatsumi Kimishima tells Time.
The Nintendo Switch won’t ship with a web browser
Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge
This isn’t necessarily surprising — Nintendo has used identical language to explain why the Switch also won’t have video streaming apps. But you could make the case that a web browser is more closely related to playing video games than Netflix; you might need one to get online with a public Wi-Fi network, for instance, and Nintendo made a point of designing the Wii U browser so it could be used in the middle of gameplay.
Elsewhere in the interview, Kimishima said that Nintendo’s new smartphone game Fire Emblem Heroes had been downloaded over a million times in its first half-day of availability, and has already brought in more than $5 million in revenue. The game, which has a similar business model to many free-to-play “gacha” Japanese titles, is currently the third top-grossing mobile app in the iOS App Store in Japan.
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