A few months ago we reported on Nintendo partnering with Japanese mobile game developer DeNA. In a recent meeting with investors that revealed a great 2014 sales year (turning their first annual profit since 2011), Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that approximately 5 mobile titles will be released by March 2017.
“You may think [it’s] a small number, but when we aim to make each title a hit, and because we want to thoroughly operate every one of them for a significant amount of time after their releases, this is not a small number at all and should demonstrate our serious commitment to the smart device business.”
Iwata continued to speak about Nintendo’s cautious approach to releasing their characters into the mobile world. “Even with highly popular IP, the odds of success are quite low if consumers cannot appreciate the quality of a game. Also, if we were simple to port software that already has a track record on a dedicated game system, it would not match the play styles of smart devices, and the appropriate business models are different between the two, so we would not anticipate a great result.”
Nintendo does plan to continue to produce their own gaming machines going forward, as we currently know that there is Project NX which is currently under development. By adding their characters to the mobile gaming atmosphere, Nintendo hopes that the casual mobile gamer that might not know much of Nintendo might find their way to a physical Nintendo device to explore these characters further.
Though there is no official release date for the mobile game due out this year, Nintendo is aiming for a 2015 year release for this title. We could suspect a few pieces of information regarding this mystery title, as well as possible more info on the NX, to start surfacing in the next few weeks, culminating towards a stellar E3 presentation.
Are you looking forward to a brand new Nintendo title for your mobile device? What series do you think they’ll launch with first? Mario? Zelda? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
