Nintendo Announces they DO plan to infiltrate mobile market

[brendanvb]

And in more Nintendo news, they now DO plan to try and infiltrate the mobile market:

Nintendo outlines its plans for mobile development

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has outlined Nintendo's plans to increase customer awareness of its hardware and software using smart phones.

"Many people say that releasing Nintendo’s software assets for smart devices would expand our business," said Iwata in a statement to Nintendo investors overnight. The company also outlined the rest of its 2014 strategy, where it reasserted that the Wii U GamePad is here to stay.

But Nintendo games (and its success) have always come from having control over both hardware and software, and Iwata added that in switching to third-party development the company could not show "our strength as an integrated hardware-software business in this field, and therefore it would difficult to continue the same scale of business in the medium-to-long term."

"Accordingly, I have not given any restrictions to the development team, even not ruling out the possibility of making games or using our game characters."
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata
Instead of expanding into smartphones completely, then, Iwata says Nintendo will "focus on achieving greater ties with our consumers on smart devices and expanding our platform business."

Iwata said Nintendo would use a "small, select team of developers to achieve" these goals. "We recognize that attracting consumers’ attention among the myriads of mobile applications is not easy, and as I said before, we feel that simply releasing our games just as they are on smart devices would not provide the best entertainment for smart devices, so we are not going to take any approach of this nature."

"In the current environment surrounding smart devices," Iwata continued, "we feel that we will not be able to gain the support of many consumers unless we are able to provide something truly valuable that is unique to Nintendo."

Here's the interesting part: Iwata says this new development team is working without restrictions, and could even make games or utilize Nintendo characters. "However, if you report that we will release Mario on smart devices, it would be a completely misleading statement," Iwata added.

"It is our intention to release some application on smart devices this year that is capable of attracting consumer attention and communicating the value of our entertainment offerings, so I would encourage you to see how our approach yields results."

Just what could eventually come out of this new mobile-focused development team at Nintendo?

Iwata concluded that Nintendo would also devote efforts into making it possible for people to use Nintendo services on smart devices, such as the eShop.

The board at Nintendo yesterday announced they would cut their pay for the next five months to apologise for Nintendo's recent financial performance.

I feel like Nintendo is making too many announcements to try and save face at this point, with no real exciting information to back up the announcements. Nintendo plans to expand into the health market, but won't say how yet. Plans to expand into the mobile market, oh but they can't say how yet. It seems a little desperate and I really feel for them.

 

[James]

Well, to be fair, it's probably a big decision and it's not going to be made in a rush. They tried to put on a brave face with the Wii U, hoping that holiday sales would them through, but...

They can ride out the tough financial times a bit and really sink their teeth into doing some great gaming work; or they can panic and release Wii U 2 with a treadmill.

Personally, I think they should just put a LOT of focus on developing an awesome console that competes in every respect with PS4, and Xbox One, and launch a decent online ecosystem. If it plays all the 3rd-party games, including awesome indie titles, to the same standard and has the Nintendo magic, then what can go wrong?

Then, they will have to pump out the most science-damned amazing games based on the IP to get the rabid fans back on board. And here's a thought - how about a couple of totally unique and original IPs that don't suck?

 

[brendanvb]

Well said James and agree with you on everything. My only concern is that, should they develop a console that is able to compete with PS4/Xbone, that would take a considerable amount of time and by the time they launch we'll probably be nearing the new generation again (hopefully this gen will be very long though). But yeah, Nintendo definitely needs a system that can play all the games the PS4/Xbone can play. They can't rely on their first party titles anymore, and all 3rd party titles released on their system are usually of a lower standard when compared to the other platform ports.

 

[XbatousaiX]

Well said James and agree with you on everything. My only concern is that, should they develop a console that is able to compete with PS4/Xbone, that would take a considerable amount of time and by the time they launch we'll probably be nearing the new generation again (hopefully this gen will be very long though). But yeah, Nintendo definitely needs a system that can play all the games the PS4/Xbone can play. They can't rely on their first party titles anymore, and all 3rd party titles released on their system are usually of a lower standard when compared to the other platform ports.

Nintendo should release there console by 2016 in the middle of the next gen cycle, but they need the console to handle ps4 and xbone ports comfortably and they will have a winner on there hands.