Nintendo Revealing Its First Smartphone Game On Thursday
Though the Nintendo 3DS has enjoyed a lot of success and the sales of the Wii U skyrocketed after the release of Mario Maker, Nintendo has been dealing with a recent drop in sales. To remedy this, the company announced seven months ago that they’d be meeting the demands of the video game market by venturing into smartphone territory.
Promised games in many of the major Nintendo franchises, fans have been eagerly awaiting the first announcement of a Nintendo-developed smartphone game. The time has finally come. According to Cult of Android, Nintendo will be revealing their very first smartphone-exclusive game on Thursday, October 29.
Nintendo is hoping this exploration into mobile app games will be the boost they need to keep them afloat in a rapidly changing industry. While some fans were furious to hear that the popular Nintendo 3DS game Fantasy Life would be getting a smartphone-only sequel, most gamers had been begging Nintendo to develop for Android and iOS devices for years.
To fulfill those wishes, Nintendo teamed up with the indie development studio DeNA to produce the same high quality content as fans would expect on home and handheld consoles. The goal is to expand Nintendo development onto new platforms for the long term. Nintendo promised not to simply remake existing games or pump out more budget title shovelware like many games already on the app store.
In short, Nintendo intends to bring the gaming world another massive success.
“We aim to make each title a hit,” said former Nintendo President Satoru Iwata.
According to Android Authority, the news of a Nintendo smartphone game getting revealed this Thursday was confirmed by Nintendo’s new president Tatsumi Kimishima after he shared the company’s financial results from recent months. While the Wii U and 3DS sales aren’t terrible, they are certainly lower than expected. Kimishima announced that the new smartphone game should start Nintendo back on the path of financial stability.
“We will talk about details tomorrow,” Tatsumi Kimishima said.
Analysts have said that Nintendo would greatly benefit from developing smartphone games. Since the company has already found great success appealing to more casual gamers, mobile devices are the perfect territory for some of their major franchises, including Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon.
Technically, Nintendo has already made the first reveal for a smartphone exclusive game: the aforementioned sequel to Fantasy Life. There is no indication yet if the game scheduled to be announced on Thursday will be the Fantasy Life game or some other title no one is expecting. While the sequel is a follow-up to a major Nintendo 3DS hit, the game play of the Fantasy Life smartphone title will reportedly be much different to the RPG style of the first game. This could prove to be a big mistake for Nintendo, which is risking alienating fans with one of their first Android and iOS games.
However, Nintendo isn’t abandoning what they do best. Kimishima also said on Wednesday that the first priority of Nintendo is to work on the brand new next generation console. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the next installment in the Nintendo hardware lineup will be a blend of a handheld and home console. This new device is already scheduled to release in 2016.
What new Nintendo merchandise do you think will save the company? The Nintendo games made exclusively for your smartphone, or the successor to the Wii U? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
UPDATE: The game has been announced. Read about it here.
[Photos by Sean Gallup/ Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images]
