Nintendo Opens Up to Smartphone Gaming

[PhilSynowiec]

Since the birth of the smartphone era, Nintendo has been famous for staying away from the mobile market, other than its own. However, according to a new report on Tuesday, the Japanese gaming giant looks to have finally changed its mind.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Nintendo has partnered with Japanese mobile game maker DeNA to develop games for PCs, smartphones and tablets. This means that DeNA will be able to create new titles using popular Nintendo characters like Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and Donkey Kong on iOS and Android devices.

“The company seems to have totally changed its mind-set, after having resisted against mobile game development, publicly complained about the low quality of content in mobile and played down its role in the game world overall,” said Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based game consultant. “This is about the most drastic, bold shift in strategy Nintendo could have undertaken.”

It looks like Nintendo will finally be getting its foot into the estimated $25 billion market. Nintendo feels "by tapping into the smartphone [they] can increase the number of Nintendo fans". There surely is a place for Nintendo in places like the App Store. The two companies plan on getting to work sometime next fall.