Nintendo building 'small, select team' for smartphone development, games not ruled out
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said during the company financial briefing that it will be dedicating a small team to mobile development, and that he hasn't restricted them from building games or using their signature characters.
Nintendo has been hesitant to enter the mobile device market, but its recent financial drubbing has made it a bit more receptive to the idea. We've heard some back and forth this week on just what those plans might entail, and earlier today Nintendo lifted the veil in its financial call.
In the company's financial presentation president Satoru Iwata said they will be dedicating a "small, select team of developers" to mobile and intend to release some application on smart devices this year. Their focus will be to highlight "the value of our entertainment offerings, thus encouraging more people to participate in Nintendo platforms." This sounds like advertising for Nintendo games, as earlier reports indicated.
Iwata still seemed skeptical about releasing its games on smartphones, especially with their signature characters, but signaled a more receptive attitude than we've heard from the company before.
"As I said before, we feel that simply releasing our games just as they are on smart devices would not provide the best entertainment for smart devices, so we are not going to take any approach of this nature," he said. "Having said that, however, in the current environment surrounding smart devices, we feel that we will not be able to gain the support of many consumers unless we are able to provide something truly valuable that is unique to Nintendo.
"Accordingly, I have not given any restrictions to the development team, even not ruling out the possibility of making games or using our game characters. However, if you report that we will release Mario on smart devices, it would be a completely misleading statement."
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Steve Watts posted a new article, Nintendo building 'small, select team' for smartphone development, games not ruled out.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said during the company financial briefing that it will be dedicating a small team to mobile development, and that he hasn't restricted them from building games or using their signature characters.-
Nintendo is far too nice to survive the industry anymore. The only trend they possibly could have stumbled on is Minecraft. Any other trends in the industry are "too mean" for them. They will never push microtransactions the way they would need to in order to survive in mobile. They will never push violence the way they would need to in order to survive in console. They will never push addiction the way they would need to in order to survive MMOs and F2P PC. They are the nice guy of the industry and nice guys always finish last lol
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I hope so because they still do cool shit. They can totally thrive as a software company with their first party titles alone obviously. But I think they are slowly realizing the difficulty of making hardware for non-enthusiasts. Those markets require low costs and high accessibility, which make it very expensive to innovate for.
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That's an interesting way to describe them. Possibly quite accurate too. But, I think they could be the monster in the mobile game space if they shifted their focus to smartphone game development. I mean, these are the guys that pioneered handheld gaming; games that much use simpler controls and/or touch interaction. At the VERY least they could totally ape Kairosoft and it's style of gaming. But, man, they would also rule the world if they moved Pokemon to cross mobile capable play. They could simply split the X/Y thing across platform X for iOS and Y for Android, or even Z for Windows and really force people make new friends (haha!). This would be a cash cow for them with microtransactions for cards and the perfect tie-in with just about any physical product partner for rare cards, etc.
Sooooo much that Nintendo could bring to the table.
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