Nintendo is finally moving into a new gaming platform, at least with a classic. For years they have resisted any attempt to move their games over to smartphones and tablets; now they have partnered with DeNA, a leading mobile gaming company out of Japan.
The partnership entails the exchange of stock, so this is a true long-term partnership and not just just a ‘we pay you to do this one job’ type of partnership.
Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata in a joint presentation with DeNA state, “Now that smart devices have grown to become the window for so many people to personally connect with society, it would be a waste not to use these devices.”
He then went on to say that, “We are challenging ourselves to redefine what ‘Nintendo platforms’ mean.”
We still don’t know which games they will be converting to mobile apps, or if they will end up creating new ones geared specially towards mobile apps, but we were told that they will not be converting the classic or current games to the new platform.
“There are significant differences in the controls, strengths and weaknesses between the controllers for dedicated game systems and the touchscreens of smart devices,” he said. “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.”
So it means that they plan to have a plan for the future and new games. According to Iwata, they have a new-concept game platform under development they are calling ‘NX’ that we will not hear much about until next year.
My guess is that ‘NX’ means Nintendo Extra, and that it will perhaps integrate mobile phone app into the platform itself, maybe phone app bonus levels that can be imported to the gaming platform.
So, we won’t be seeing Mario or Zelda at least in their traditional forms on your phones anytime soon, but there is hope that they will make an appearance.
