Nintendo CEO Tatsumi Kimishima led the briefing by announcing the first of five new smartphone games, titled “Miitomo“. Much expected was the announcement of Nintendo’s first mobile app, updates on the new Nintendo network ID program, and more. Taking cues from the Mii avatars gamers can make on Nintendo’s Wii U, 3DS, and Wii systems, Miitomo users will first create a digital recreation of themselves. Takahashi emphasized that Miitomo centers around facilitating connections for people who are shy or hesitant to communicate with others. The delay from the end of 2015 to next year has to do with lead time for promotion, as well as not distract from other games in the promotional pipeline this year.
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For example, it revealed that while Miitomo is free-to-play, that a few of Nintendo’s smartphone games will be pay to download.
Nintendo long resisted putting its games onto smartphones, or indeed any other gaming platform that it did not manufacture itself. And that’s probably a good idea because this thing sounds weird as hell and more app-ish than game-y.
It seems that Nintendo could well announce its first smartphone game tomorrow. Or a new incarnation of the game Tomodachi Life. “We haven’t talked to Nintendo about targets, but at DeNA, our best-selling game [“Kaito Royale”] brought in 3 billion yen [close to $25 million] a month, and we want to surpass that”, Isao Moriyasu, DeNA Chief Executive, said to Reuters.
Now, I would like to introduce you to a free-to-start type communication application for smart devices, namely, our smart device application, which can be started for free and will push forward the My Nintendo membership service.
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A result of their partnership with DeNA, Miitomo will be available starting March 2016. They plan to have five in total by March of 2017. Like Microsoft’s Xbox Live service and PlayStation’s Plus service, Nintendo Account is cloud-based and serves to unify your various Nintendo devices across a single account. Even still Nintendo said that company shares are down 7.5%, proving the Japanese games maker is still in trouble despite its new plan.
