Jason Rubin calls Nintendo ‘irrelevant’

Naughty Dog co-founder and THQ chief Jason Rubin has called Nintendo “irrelevant” in the games hardware market.

Rubin was commenting on the lacklustre performance of the Wii U in an interview with GameTrailers.

“Nintendo is irrelevant as a hardware manufacturer in the console business right now,” he said, adding the PS4 and Xbox One will do well this generation because “Nintendo has stumbled”.

His main criticism of the Japanese manufacturer was what he saw as a failure to release its celebrated games on third-party platforms, such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Rubin labelled this a crime.

However, he did praise the company as a “worldwide treasure” for its legacy of consistently fun titles.

Frequently outspoken, at the dawn of the last console race back in 2006 and another interview with GameTrailers, Rubin favoured Nintendo, when Wii mania was just about to break, while he predicted a fall for Sony with its costly PlayStation 3.