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Nintendo Looking to Grow Its Mobile Efforts Into $1 Billion Per Year Business

That's a lot of Super Mario coins. 

Brittany Vincent

May 2, 2018 9:00 AM

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Nintendo has been reeling from the success of its mobile efforts with its past few mobile releases, namely Super Mario Run, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. It's understandable, as all three games have enjoyed a considerable amount of success since their debut. With that in mind, Nintendo is taking the Pokemon Go success model and applying it to its own strategies in a bid to beef up its smartphone operations into what will eventually become a $1 billion business.

Incoming company President Shuntaro Furukawa told Nikkei that "smartphone games" are the ones he wants to expand the most. The incoming president will be taking over this June, and it looks like this philosophy is very important to him. It seems to be for a good reason, too, as the mobile gaming segment of the company came away with a whopping 39.3 billion yen in fiscal 2017, comprising 4% of the company's total revenue.

"The idea that something will emerge that transforms into something big, in the same manner as game consoles, is the defining motive of the Nintendo business," said Furukawa on his upcoming strategy. It all appears to have been spurred on by Niantic's colossal Pokemon Go efforts, mentioned by outgoing Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima.

"'Pokemon Go,' which transformed the story and gameplay for the smartphone, became a huge realization, Kimishima said. Though it doesn't seem as though anything like Pokemon Go is currently in development, according to Furukawa.

As far as what Nintendo does have rolling out soon, it has partnered with Cygames to create a new smartphone title in the future, though that's about all we know about it so far. There's also the matter of a Mario Kart mobile title coming at a later date -- Mario Kart Tour, which we haven't learned much about just yet, but is inevitably coming down the line.

Brittany Vincent

Senior Editor

Fueled by horror, rainbow-sugar-pixel-rushes, and video games, Brittany is a Senior Editor at Shacknews who thrives on surrealism and ultraviolence. Follow her on Twitter @MolotovCupcake and check out her portfolio for more. Like a fabulous shooter once said, get psyched!