Nintendo has decided to enter the mobile phone market, to offer games to smartphone users, with restrictions.
Nintendo is known for its legendarily strong stance in the gaming market, with its impasse on its console properties. Nintendo however “got served” by the rise of the mobile gaming market and stronger adversaries Sony and Microsoft. With their tail between their legs, the company finally conceded to entering the mobile gaming market.
Teaming up with Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA, Nintendo will be creating games other that titles released specifically for Wii and Nintendo consoles. The new partnership means that games that would ideally have the same Nintendo touch but offered on a freemium basis.
Nintendo has to tread carefully however in balancing quality vs. ROI in an already competitive mobile gaming market. The console and its games are popular for the specific qualities of gameplay experience that they currently offer to consumers. Straying too far away from their ethos may result in disgruntled gaming fundamentalists, critiques and then a disaffected and rapidly depleting gamer following.
This is great news for mobile gamers however who have up until now had to deal with poor defined mobile games with great graphics and shoddy stories in the pursuit of advertising revenue. With Nintendo on board, a company that has stronger expectations from fantastic gaming producers like Square Enix, the mobile gaming industry – the creatives in particular – will have to up their game by a good few notches.
Following the news of this partnership Nintendo was overwhelmed with buy in requests from investors, testament to the confidence they have in the virility of the business idea.
Despite the shift from consoles to mobile gaming, consumer buy-in and ROI will ultimately decide whether this decision is actually revolutionary or not and this of course all depends on the quality offered.