Do me a favor and go outside. Does it feel a little unseasonably cold? Perhaps a bit more nippy than usual? That’s very likely because what I’m about to share with you may have very well frozen the underworld itself over. The day that people may never have thought was coming is finally upon us; Nintendo is officially stepping into the mobile gaming arena. They aren’t just doing this with their usual crop of developers though, Nintendo has specifically partnered with mobile gaming giant DeNA (pronounced DNA) who has made such successful titles like Godus, Star Wars Galactic Defense, Blood Brothers 2 and plenty more.
Nintendo has stated that they are going to potentially license out all of their extensive library of IPs out to DeNA and even other mobile developers as well, creating a brand new platform of delivery that’s ready for these characters. Recognizing that mobile gaming has it’s strengths and plenty of weaknesses, Nintendo has said that this will only cover new, original games that are specifically designed for smart devices. This means that ports of old games are out of the question, which will make some people a bit sad but ultimately is better for Nintendo’s IPs. Nintendo will continue to develop it’s own platforms with unique games for those systems, so this isn’t a way to get the same games on more platforms, rather a way to get brand new games using well established and loved IPs.
Nintendo has also announced a brand new account system utilizing DeNA’s extensive history with Mobage and other account-based systems. Nintendo has long had a problem with customers buying digital games as it has not had a true account system up until now, making transferring games and recovering purchased content extraordinarily difficult. This new account service should mean the end of friend codes and other things that have driven people crazy with Nintendo’s online infrastructure for quite some time, and it also means that Nintendo fans will finally get one system to span across all devices. That means your Nintendo account will work on your smartphone, tablet, WiiU, 3DS and any future Nintendo systems too. This new system and likely the first crop of mobile games are set to appear this coming Fall, so we’re only a few months away.
This partnership includes a financial agreement between the companies in the way of Nintendo buying a 10 percent share in DeNA and DeNA in turn buying a 1.24 percent share of Nintendo. This could be the biggest gaming deal in many years if the cards are played right, and in general this is phenomenal news for lovers of Nintendo’s IPs. Nintendo has recently experimented with free to play games like Pokemon Shuffle and has been licensing out its characters to fit into more games than ever before on Nintendo platforms lately.