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Nintendo today it entered the space in a big way. The company has announced that it will team up with DeNA, a major Japanese mobile gaming company, to make smartphone games featuring Nintendo characters. The two companies “intend to jointly operate new gaming applications featuring Nintendo IP, which they will develop specifically for smart devices,” according to a Nintendo statement.
“Only new original games optimized for smart device functionality will be created.”
Although the games will leverage Nintendo properties, they won’t be straight ports. “To ensure the quality of game experience that consumers expect from this alliance of Nintendo and DeNA, only new original games optimized for smart device functionality will be created, rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U home console or the Nintendo 3DS portable system,” says DeNA in a statement.
To further emphasize the point that Nintendo isn’t giving up on dedicated games systems, president Satoru Iwata said at a press conference in Tokyo today that Nintendo is working on a new console, codenamed NX, with a “brand-new concept.” No further details were revealed, and NX will be some way off; Iwata says the company hopes to announce more next year.
DeNA, meanwhile, brings an understanding of the mobile market and social gaming that Nintendo has lacked. “DeNA’s expertise lies in, for example, the infrastructure technology that can handle a massive amount of traffic,” CEO Isao Moriyasu (pictured top left) said today. “We are also able to manage live operation by analyzing user activities and quickly reflecting the insight to improve our service.”
