Image courtesy of Kotaku.
Nintendo’s stance on making games for mobile devices is one that is very well-known as the company has long said no so such an idea. The company managed to maintain this stance for several years before slowly giving in by creating apps, not games, for mobile devices, and if you’re hoping to one day see Mario or Zelda titles arrive on your smartphone, that day is now one step closer to being a reality.
The company has recently announced that they will be teaming up with Japanese online giant DeNA and together both companies will be creating games for smartphones. Now before you think that this means we’ll be looking at obscure titles and characters with Nintendo’s branding on it, that does not appear to be the case as these games will use Nintendo’s IP. Granted it won’t exactly be The Legend of Zelda or Super Mario Bros. for your mobile device, but we reckon it’s a step towards that direction.
According to the press release from DeNA, “To ensure the quality of game experience that consumers expect from this alliance of Nintendo and DeNA, only new original games optimized for smart device functionality will be created, rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U home console or the Nintendo 3DS portable system.” We suppose the goal here is to eventually attract users to play more games on Nintendo’s platform.
It’s refreshing to see Nintendo relax their stance but don’t your breath for titles from the Wii U or the Nintendo 3DS anytime soon.