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Nintendo reportedly unveiling first smartphone game tomorrow
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MacNN Staff
Join Date: Jul 2012
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Nintendo could announce its first game or app destined for smartphones as early as tomorrow, following shortly after the reporting of relatively weak financial results. New chief executive Tatsumi Kimishima is said to have hinted at an announcement, which may be the result of a partnership with mobile gaming company DeNA that began earlier this year, with the Wall Street Journal reporting him as saying "We will talk about details tomorrow."
Back in March, Nintendo confirmed it had a change of heart regarding mobile gaming on smartphones and tablets, as previously it preferred for its games to be played on its own handheld consoles. At the time, it was said the two companies would be working together on an "online membership service" that worked across mobile devices and Nintendo consoles. Today's report suggests this will actually be a game, though the identity of the game franchise is apparently still a secret.
Analysts believe Nintendo's move into mobile gaming may be good for the company, since it has a history of producing games played by casual gamers. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Hiroyasu Eguchi suggests Nintendo's strategy may be to "use smartphone games not primarily to earn profits, but to boost awareness of game characters, which could drive sales of console games in the future."
This awareness strategy could be extremely useful to Nintendo for its next console, improving upon the relatively poor sales of the Wii-U compared to other current-generation hardware. Codenamed the Nintendo NX, the game company has reportedly started providing developers with a development kit, and already has one launch title already confirmed.
While this may end up being the first game from Nintendo for mobile devices, it's not the first game associated with Nintendo to make the transition. Pokemon games have existed on mobile for a while now, but crucially the franchise is controlled by The Pokemon Company, which is owned by Nintendo and affiliated with Game Freak and Creatures, allowing it to have some level of autonomy from Nintendo itself.
According to the financial results, Nintendo produced an operating profit of 8.98 billion yen ($74.6 million) in the six months ending in September. While this was a marked improvement compared to the 215 million yen loss for the same period last year, Nintendo still missed analyst expectations of 14.4 billion yen. While sales rose year on year from 171.4 billion yen to 204.2 billion yen, net income fell for the same periods, from 14.3 billion to 11.5 billion yen.
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Last edited by NewsPoster; Oct 28, 2015 at 01:34 PM.
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Grizzled Veteran
Join Date: Nov 2006
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Nintendo needs to explore making movies out of their popular characters. Lego is already ahead of the game and it drives their sales. Sorry, anime doesn't count and it's a niche. A feature Mario movie for the global and should be directed and written by J. J. Abrams. If you look at Mario Galaxy, that's Mario Star Wars in Wonderland. The concept has so much potential and Nintendo just missed it.
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Managing Editor
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Or, you know, ACTUAL Mario on iOS.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Feb 2001
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I think that's a stupid strategy .... they should focus ALL their development on iOS and other mobile. They make their money on the games anyway .... they're losing money on the console ... so why bother making another console. Just produce top notch games for iOS and tvOS, and you're golden .... no need to lose money on hardware. They can even make accessories for the AppleTV.
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Managing Editor
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Yeah, this didn't turn out to be much. More shortly.
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Senior User
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Originally Posted by quebit
they're losing money on the console ...
According to who?
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Senior User
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Originally Posted by Mike Wuerthele
Or, you know, ACTUAL Mario on iOS.
This will never happen.
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