Over the last few months, it’s been made clear that Japanese video game company Nintendo intends on putting its stamp on smartphone gaming, however at times it’s been unclear exactly how they’re going to do that. While Nintendo has mentioned at several points that they would be using Nintendo IP for all five of their planned smartphone games by March 2017, the first of their games features the Nintendo avatar – the humble Mii. While we love Mii’s, they’re not exactly Mario and Luigi, so to make clear exactly why Nintendo hasn’t gone straight to their top money-making IP, President of Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Aime recently spoke with TIME about Nintendo’s smartphone gaming strategy.
Unfortunately there’s a simplistic mentality out there, that ‘Make a Mario game for smart devices’ is a recipe for printing money. And it’s not. It just simply is not. It’s that Kyoto craftsmanship mentality that says whatever we’re going to do, it needs to be a wonderful experience for consumers.
In this way, what I would say in terms of our mobile apps is that we will absolutely continue our traditional maxim of developing software that matches the hardware. We have looked at the limitations of software design on mobile platforms, and worked within those parameters. If there’s a 3DS game that requires the full manipulation of joysticks and multiple buttons, that game clearly can’t be exactly replicated on a touch-screen mobile device. Our strategy is not to port games developed for our dedicated systems to smart devices as they are–we have to develop new software experiences that give people the opportunity to interact with Nintendo IP and that matches the play style and control of smart devices.
While that all makes sense, it’s probably not what Nintendo fans were hoping to hear. Having said that, it does seem like Nintendo is committed to its mobile ventures – the only question remaining is whether or not they’ll be any good at it. We’ll have to wait till March 2016 before we get our first taste with their first mobile game, Miitomo.
What do you think about Reggie Fils-Aime’s comments about Nintendo’s smartphone gaming strategy? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Source: TIME via Nintendo Life
