As our grasp of technology increases, so does our will to make things that little bit more user-friendly. It’s no surprise then that Japanese electronics company Korg has announced a music production app to be released on the Nintendo Switch, made possible via their partnership with software developer Detune.
Simply named KORG Gadget for Nintendo Switch, the software will be available around Spring 2018, and will aim to make aspects of music production gaming-oriented and easy to use.
Not much more information is available; a microsite has been launched (http://gadget.korg.com/nintendo_switch/) but contains minimal information and serves only as a teaser for the product. However, one source (4Gamer.net) notes that the software will utilise Nintendo’s Joy-Con motion sensor ability and will support up to four ‘players’.
The Japanese gaming news site also states that saving and exporting songs elsewhere will be difficult at first due to Nintendo’s limited physical connectivity, meaning users will likely have to record gameplay via HDMI and remove unwanted video later. It is believed that if this is the case, Nintendo may update firmware to make exporting much simpler.
Both Nintendo and Korg have been innovators in their industries for decades, with emphasis on creativity and thinking outside the box. Korg are known for tapping into the synthesiser market in the 1970s, before releasing the M1 workstation in 1988 – one of the best-selling synthesisers of all time. On the other hand, Nintendo have achieved incredible feats in the gaming world, perhaps most notably the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America. Released just two years after the video game crash of 1983, Nintendo successfully revived the video game market and changed home entertainment forever.
Korg have partnered with Nintendo before – in 2010, they released an M1 workstation ‘simulator’ for the Nintendo 3DS, allowing users to not only create songs and save them to the SD card, but also to experience nostalgia via 80s synthesiser sounds accessible in the program.
Article by Connor Winyard.
He discovered the gem when he was 12 years old and still has it now, claiming it to be why he fell in love with music. He likes to play disc golf when he's not writing about music. He is a one-of-a-kind individual who is always the first to bust out his air guitar on the dance-floor.