Nintendo Will Make The Move To Smartphones, Kind Of
by Brent Dirks
January 27, 2014
According to a report in Japanese newspaper The Nikkei, Nintendo is finally planning on making the move to smartphones. But it’s not exactly the way you think.
Dr. Serkan Toto relays the information in a blog post. On Thursday, Nintendo will reportedly announce its mobile strategy for this year:
But Nintendo will not simply put Mario, Pokemon or other games on smartphones. According to the report, Nintendo plans to use Android and/or iOS devices (not confirmed at this point) to market its console games. To be more concrete, The Nikkei writes that Nintendo wants to use smartphones to expand its potential user base by spreading information about new game releases, i.e. by using video to introduce future titles. (This will probably happen through some kind of official Nintendo app.)Nintendo is also planning to introduce mini games to smartphone platforms. They will basically be playable demos of the console games to give mobile users a bit of the experience. All of the content will be entirely free, which is at least one bit of good news. While we’ve known since earlier this month that the venerable game maker isn’t planning on making its titles available in the App Store, the concrete plans do sound even worse than I imagined. Many my age grew up with the brand, and unless it can adapt more to gamer’s changing tastes, I’m afraid it won’t stand much of a chance. For other app news today, see: AT&T Confirms It Has No Intention Of Taking Over British Carrier Vodafone, Taiwanese Companies Secure Packaging Orders For Apple's A8 Processor, and Op-Ed: Apple’s iPhone 5c Has Been A Mistake That Won’t Be Repeated. Image via: Flickr
