Labo is just the beginning for Switch experimentation as Nintendo partners with Scrum Ventures

Nintendo will continue to innovate the Switch platform, by utilising both its current range of capabilities and sensors, as well as looking at additional hardware, as it announced a partnership with Scrum Ventures to achieve this goal.

Scrum is a venture capital firm and angel investor in tech startups. It will work for Nintendo by looking for potentially exciting ideas from startups that could be paired with the Nintendo Switch – both for games and to potentially expand its capabilities beyond that category.

“We are always exploring ways to evolve entertainment,” commented Ko Shiota, a senior executive officer at Nintendo. “As one of our approaches we look forward to discovering unique technologies that add to the Nintendo Switch experiences through the program managed by Scrum Ventures.”

Bloomberg reported that Scrum, an early-stage venture capital firm, would select which teams it would work with before pitching their concepts to Nintendo later in the year. It also noted that ‘software titles’ wouldn’t be up for consideration.

Scrum Ventures and Nintendo will then provide support to those startups in terms of technology, with an aim to creating marketable products. Neither Scrum nor Nintendo would be investing in said projects at this stage.

Nintendo has a long history of adding devices to its consoles in order to increase their capabilities. However, this is the first time it has reached out so publicly to third-parties to assist it in this process.

Nintendo’s Labo concept of cardboard contraptions, which make innovative use of the console’s current range of capabilities, have been very well received by the mainstream and specialist press, and will launch in the 27th of April.