A couple of years ago when Nintendo was still led by the late Satoru Iwata, it seemed impossible that the Kyoto-based entertainment company will ever truly embrace mobile platforms. Not that long ago, Nintendo was still afraid of diluting its valuable intellectual properties like Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon by publishing casual mobile games. However, as Reggie Fils-Aime, the President of Nintendo of America recently admitted, the mobile games market simply became too big to ignore. So, after launching Miitomo and debuting the incredibly successful augmented reality game Pokemon GO, Nintendo decided to conclude this year by releasing Super Mario Run. While we’re still waiting for the latter to hit the Google Play Store, the Kyoto-based conglomerate is already looking towards the future.
Namely, Kyoto NP recently interviewed Tatsumi Kimishima, the current President of Nintendo, who admitted how the company is now planning to adopt a more proactive approach to mobile games. In fact, Kimishima is so optimistic about this market that he believes mobile games have enough potential to become one of the company’s primary sources of revenue. In addition to direct financial gains, Nintendo also sees mobile games as an effective way to advertise its console business, especially as it’s currently preparing to launch Nintendo Switch, a new type of console designed as a hybrid between a tablet and a home entertainment system.
More specifically, Kimishima confirmed how Nintendo is currently planning to launch two to three new mobile games over the course of 2017. The Japanese gaming company previously revealed plans for mobile games based on the Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing series, though no information regarding the third title mentioned by Kimishima has yet been revealed. Seeing how Nintendo owns a broad range of popular IPs, it’s possible that the company has a Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, or Yoshi mobile game in the making. Now, as Nintendo is reportedly viewing all mobile platforms as a single ecosystem, it’s unlikely Kimishima was referring to the Android port of Super Mario Run when talking about the company’s plans for 2017. Speaking of which, there’s still no information on when Nintendo’s new auto-runner will finally hit the Google Play Store, but more information will hopefully be available come early 2017.