As the biggest player in the handheld market, Nintendo has been in a duel of fate with the mobile market for almost as long as I can remember there being smart phones. In the days of Candy Crush and Angry Birds we’ve seen an increase of 55% in casual and social gaming since 2012 (Page 5. ESA 2014) and some of this mobile gaming can probably be attributed to handheld console sales being under Nintendo’s expectations in the holiday season.
Today Nintendo has taken the first step towards opening up its franchises to a market that, until now, has been pretty much ignored by the Japanese giant; announcing a partnership with DeNA – one of the biggest mobile platform creators in Japan. The companies announced that they would be leveraging the strength of Nintendo’s characters and franchises to create new games apps for the mobile audience. If you are fearing for the future of Nintendo games on mobiles being simple cash-in’s the partnership did have encouraging words to share on what exactly we can expect from these mobile game releases stating outright that only new original games optimized for smart device functionality will be created.
I think Mario Bane is excited about this news…
In addition to this move to the mobile market with DeNA we can also expect a new online membership service accessible from mobile, pc and Nintendo platforms, something I think the company has been in need of since the huge success of Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.
How do you feel about this news, and what kind of Nintendo games would you like to see on mobile platforms? Please let us know in the comments!