Nintendo To Make Smart Phone Mobile Games With New Partner, New Console Outlined
Nintendo dropped a major bombshell today by announcing a partnership with DeNA, a Japanese mobile gaming company, to help develop games for said devices featuring Nintendo properties.
To be clear, they aren’t porting titles to smartphone devices, they’re creating new, original titles.
“There are significant differences in the controls, strengths and weaknesses between the controllers for dedicated game systems and the touchscreens of smart devices,” Nintendo President Satoru said during the press briefing. “We have no intention at all to port existing game titles for dedicated game platforms to smart devices because if we cannot provide our consumers with the best possible play experiences, it would just ruin the value of Nintendo’s IP.”
The goal for this is to have hit titles for both mobile devices, along with Nintendo’s standard hardware both handheld and console.
“For smart devices, even in the case where we utilize the same IP, we will create completely new game software that will perfectly match the play styles of smart devices,” Iwata said.
Furthering the bombshell was the announcement of what Nintendo’s new hardware console would be. This partnership has only strengthened the desire to make console games. And thus Nintendo is going to make a “dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept” codenamed “NX.”
“As proof that Nintendo maintains strong enthusiasm for the dedicated game system business, let me confirm that Nintendo is currently developing a dedicated game platform with a brand-new concept under the development codename ‘NX,'” he said. “It is too early to elaborate on the details of this project, but we hope to share more information with you next year.”
Also, Nintendo will be creating a new membership system, one that will apparently work on numerous platforms including smartphones and the new Nintendo consoles.
“Also, until now, when we said, ‘platform,’ it meant a specific video game platform,” Iwata said. “Now that we are going to release games on smart devices and make use of globally widespread PCs and smart devices for our new membership service, we would like to offer more consumers with software that is suited to their tastes. In other words, we are challenging ourselves to redefine what ‘Nintendo platforms’ mean.”
This news could mean many things for Nintendo, we’ll have to see just how it all plays out. But as for me? This could be an incredible opportunity for the Big N.
If you would like to see and hear the news from Mr. Iwata himself, feel free to watch the video below.