This game is the first of five releases that will be available before 2017.
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According to VentureBeat, the growth was fuelled by Super Mario Maker, Splatoon and a couple of 3DS releases in Japan. “They had to see Apple, Google, King and SuperCell surpass them in terms of 2014 game revenues to take action towards mobile”, Warman said. “However, it never is too late because smartphone and tablet gaming is here to stay”. Also, while Miitomo will be free-to-play, other Nintendo smartphone games will be pay-to-download. Now, Nintendo is relegated to the handheld world.
Once the unequivocal leader in video games, Nintendo today is facing threats from several directions.
It’s unclear what the other four mobile games Nintendo has in the pipeline are, but we’re hoping there’s more of a gaming aspect to them.
The console wars once pitted Nintendo against Sega as the two competed for supremacy. In 2012 the company saw its first annual loss in over thirty years.
But unlike Sega, which ditched its Genesis console to focus on games, Nintendo isn’t abandoning consoles. It has a new system, code-named NX, under development.
With the identity of the first Nintendo mobile game shrouded in mystery, industry leaders believe this is a great way to raise awareness of the Nintendo characters and IPs while boosting profits. It’s been a hard few years for Nintendo. But the dawning realization that mobile devices were beginning to replace the television is what Nintendo says led it to believe that its characters and games needed to show up on those increasingly ubiquitous screens as well.
Called “Miitomo, ‘ the free app will allow users to create their own ‘Miis” – the personalized digital avatars that populate Nintendo’s consoles.
“We will provide updates on our project with DeNA tomorrow”, said Nintendo chief executive officer Tatsumi Kimishima in a recent press release. No details of the new game are known yet, including which of Nintendo’s franchises it will feature, though Super Mario Bros. seems like an obvious choice, as it is their most well-known and beloved franchise. Sales rose to ¥204.2 billion from ¥171.4 billion, but net income fell to ¥11.5 billion from ¥14.3 billion.
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In short, profits haven’t risen spectacularly for Nintendo, but they have indeed risen, going from around $189.9 million this time a year ago to around $226 million now.
