Nintendo has confirmed that “after careful consideration” the company won’t be attending this year’s Gamescom event in Cologne, Germany.
Reports originally came from German outlet Games Wirtschaft, in which a Nintendo representative told the site that the Japanese publisher will be skipping Gamescom 2024.
Now, a Nintendo spokesperson has also confirmed to Eurogamer that the company won’t be in attendance, stating: “Gamescom is a great event, and each year we evaluate whether Nintendo should participate or not. After careful consideration from all perspectives, we’ve made the decision not to be present at Gamescom 2024. Players will have opportunities to try out Nintendo Switch games at other events throughout the year.”
While Nintendo has almost always had a presence at Europe’s largest gaming event, its absence from Gamescom this year makes a degree of sense. For one, first party support on the Nintendo Switch appears to be drying up, with few notable 2024 releases beyond the upcoming Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door remake and Endless Ocean Luminous.
Furthermore, rumors thus far largely indicate that the company’s next hardware – tentatively being referred to as Nintendo Switch 2 – is likely to arrive next year. In all likelihood, this means we probably won’t be getting an official announcement on the console before or during Gamescom 2024. This likely also rules out Summer Game Fest.
Nintendo not attending Gamescom 2024 does represent something of a sea change, then. With few upcoming games left for the Switch’s first-party catalog, it’s likely the Kyoto-based company is instead shifting focus to its next big piece of hardware and – at the very least – its own future launch line-up.