It seems Nintendo may have had a change of heart on its position of mobile games. The Japanese video game maker is now listening to its users and heeding calls from investors to boost revenue by bringing many of their iconic characters like Mario to smartphones and tablets.
Players have increasingly shunned their latest console, the Nintendo Wii U, leading to lower operating profits for the company. In an effort to reignite company profits, Nintendo will partner with DeNA Co. Ltd. To develop and operate the gaming apps.
The two companies also plan to launch an online membership service later this year that will be accessible on mobile devices and Nintendo's existing Wii U console and portable 3DS.
"This will allow us to build a bridge between smart devices and gaming consoles," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told reporters. "It doesn't mean smart devices will eat away at gaming consoles, it will create an entirely new type of demand."
Investors has been clamoring for the company to embrace mobile platforms as the company has lost many of its customers to both the mobile platform and its competitor consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and the Microsoft Xbox.
Until now the company has resisted the temptation to shift to mobile games pinning its future on the release of games such as "Mario Kart 8." However, in January Nintendo halved its operating earnings target for the fiscal year ending on March 20 to 20 billion yen or approximately $169 million U.S. dollars citing weak 3DS sales during the holiday shopping season.
As part of the new partnership, Nintendo and DeNA will both buy 22 billion yen worth of shares in each other giving Nintendo a 10 percent stake in the company and DeNa a 1.2 percent stake in Nintendo.
Iwata didn't disclose any details about the mobile games in the pipeline from the two companies although he say they would not be a hand-me-down rehash of its successful past titles.
Iwata also announced that Nintendo was already hard at work developing a new gaming platform currently known as NX, but declined to give further details about this new platform.
DeNa first opened its doors as a startup in 1999 and has grown to a major online gaming company. The company hopes that this new partnership with Nintendo will help it regain some of the momentum it lost in the last two years to other, more popular gaming apps.
As a result of this partnership, Nintendo will become the second largest shareholder of DeNA after its founder, Tomoko Namba, who currently holds a 13.1 percent stake in the gaming company.
