If you are 20 years old or more, there’s a big chance Nintendo games were an important part of your childhood – and even while you were a teenager. Countless weekends to reach the end of Super Mario World were priceless. However, as modern consoles came to life and more recently smartphones have become an important segment of gaming, Nintendo was slowly being left behind. In opposite roads of the likes of Sega and other iconic game makers, Nintendo stayed away from the mobile gaming, rather holding to their own consoles. This strategy didn’t work out very well, as seen on their declining revenues and year after year losses since 2012 – only last May that the company reached profitability again. After failing to push console sales up, late-CEO Satoru Iwata announced that the company would finally make smartphone games.
Nintendo fans can rejoice, as the company is just one day away from unveiling their first game, to be launched this Thursday, October 29. This long-awaited release will be the first of 5 games and the company will land all of them until 2017. “You may think it is a small number, but when we aim to make each title a hit, and because we want to thoroughly operate every one of them for a significant amount of time after their releases, this is not a small number at all and should demonstrate our serious commitment to the smart device business,” said Iwata to The Verge back in May, reiterating that the company would be taking a cautious approach to the mobile market.
Although it is exciting enough to have Nintendo games on Android, the company isn’t expected to port existing games, meaning that these will be entirely new games. Although it would be really nice to be able to play Super Mario World on that big bright Galaxy Note 5 screen, Nintendo gave us reasons to be excited about their mobile games. Back in September they teased Pokemon Go, an amazing game that combines virtual reality, RPG and your smartphone, transforming the real world in a Pokemon world. As a trainer, you will walk around your city and whenever a Pokemon “is around” you will be notified on your phone and also through a special wearable device. So far there’s no clue of what Nintendo will be announcing tomorrow, but we are just a few hours away from knowing what is to come, so, stay tuned for more news.