Following Nintendo’s 2014 earnings report — the first time Nintendo turned a profit in a while — the company’s Satoru Iwata met with investors to expand on Nintendo’s aspirations for the mobile gaming market.
He said the public can expect Nintendo’s first mobile game by the end of this year, and by March 2017, there will be five. While that seems like a small number, Iwata said the aim is to make each title a hit and make sure plenty of time is spent to make sure each game plays well.
The games will likely feature familiar faces to Nintendo like Mario and Link, but Iwata stressed the games won’t be ports of existing titles; they will be completely original.
“Even with highly popular IP, the odds of success are quite low if consumers cannot appreciate the quality of a game,” Iwata said.
Nintendo will be very cautious with its mobile offerings and will explore all possible avenues for monetization — that means all original games won’t be free-to-play, for example. It will also aim to unite its mobile games and console offerings under the same Nintendo account users buy games with.
So far there’s no word on what the first game will be, though back in March Nintendo announced a partnership with mobile game company DeNA.
Additionally, Nintendo is working a new console codenamed NX. So far nothing is known about the console and more details will come out next year.
