BigJKO

Nintendo announces mobile deal with DeNA

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Yoshi Touch and go was great, but I felt Canvas Curse did it better.
Yeah except Canvas Curse was not a competitive game at all! Neither did it better. I loved both unequivocally! They were simply different games embracing the same concept.

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This day and age, Nintendo will not let low quality games come out for ANY platform regardless of who is developing them. There's just no way they go hands off and let someone else put out shitty titles using their characters and names, on other platforms. At this point if a Nintendo-branded game is bad, it's not because Nintendo didn't care enough or didn't pay close enough attention. These aren't the CD-i or Mario Teaches Typing days.

Mario go fish!

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It will come as no surprise that the markets reacted extremely positive to this move, and their stock shot way up after this announcement. I sort of thought they had the right idea when they were resisting investors demands to move to mobile, but on the other hand mobile really is where the Japanese gaming market is so that position probably made less and less sense to them over time, especially if Western sales didn't really pick up any slack.

 

I don't have anything else to say about it just because it is so unclear what they'll actually be doing on mobile. The most optimistic scenario I can imagine is one where the quality of the Nintendo releases improves the overall mobile game ecosystem.

 

On the other hand, I could also see them releasing a lot of mediocre ports (they wouldn't be the first Japanese game company to do so).

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It seems like Nintendo has always dabbled around the edges of a lot of the ideas that lend themselves well to mobile -- second-screen gaming with their console/handheld connectivity and the Wii U, "appointment games" with Animal Crossing, "companion apps" with various Pokemon products, etc. Most of the time that stuff has been horribly impractical... maybe those ideas can finally shine if they're on a platform that more people actually own.

 

A good Pokedex app alone would probably make bank, judging from how many knockoffs there are on mobile already.

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So my thinking on this is that Nintendo are working on a new handheld, but if they actually announce a new handheld (and yeah, it takes the wind out of the New 3DS' sales, which is clearly a stop-gap system like the DSi/GBA SP/Game Boy Color) the investors will be furious because it's Nintendo ignoring mobile again.

 

Nintendo is right to boast they've got the most recognisable properties in the industry - Mario is at Mickey Mouse levels of cultural awareness - and the mobile market is built on recognition above all else. The audience on mobile largely don't know what's good, or who make good games - there's too much choice, and they're not yet savvy enough to be wary of free-to-play tricks. Recognition is all that matters.

 

The games likely won't be great, but it won't matter. There's no reason to assume that, though - the mobile Rayman games are genuinely good quality, even though they're not the Rayman console games.

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On the other hand, I could also see them releasing a lot of mediocre ports (they wouldn't be the first Japanese game company to do so).

 

They've explicitly stated (Iwata, I think) that they will not be doing ports. These will be new games made for a touchscreen interface. So that's at least out.

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I really wonder if the kids playing all their free games on iPhones give a hot flying fuck about Donkey Kong.

 

To us, yeah, Pokemon on an iPad is a no-brainer, but can you say that about children born post-2000? Even outside of branding, Nintendo is out of the loop on how mobile games are designed. Crossy Road is not a modern Nintendo style game, and I'm not sure if Threes is either. Clash of Clans definitely isn't.

 

My opinion here isn't very informed, and I'm sure this room has plenty of things to correct me on, but "Nintendo signs mobile deal" is a very impotent headline to me.

On the out-there dream that they announce a brilliant new Advance Wars, then yeah I'll call that a day one perch just like everyone else, of course!

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A good Pokedex app alone would probably make bank, judging from how many knockoffs there are on mobile already.

 

There's been one since 2012. It costs $26 if you actually want every Pokémon to be in it, you have to put in a password to see Meloetta or Genesect's data, and it was never updated to include Gen VI Pokémon after X and Y launched.

 

The thing about Game Freak and Creatures, Inc. is that they're not particularly good developers, they just happen to make one very good game.

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I'm just totally bummed out about this, for a couple of reasons.

 

One, it says to me that the writing is on the wall for home video game consoles and handhelds.

 

Two, it means Nintendo is backing out of an assurance they made really only a year or two ago that this would never, ever happen over Iwata's dead body.  If they're already walking that statement back, it means they're losing control of their own business niche to a degree no one's anticipated.  It means the Wii U isn't just another a GameCube - a small failure before the next big comeback - but that Nintendo is actually struggling to find a direction for the company to go in.

 

I'm usually the first to express skepticism at Nintendo's naysayers, but nothing about this situation looks good. 

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Time has an interview with Iwata where he says that development will be primarily handled by Nintendo, and DeNA will mostly handle the service side:

http://time.com/3748920/nintendo-mobile-games/

 

There's been one since 2012. It costs $26 if you actually want every Pokémon to be in it, you have to put in a password to see Meloetta or Genesect's data, and it was never updated to include Gen VI Pokémon after X and Y launched.

 

Huh, weird. The Pokemon Company is a separate entity from Nintendo, right? Hopefully Nintendo proper can do a better job.

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Huh, weird. The Pokemon Company is a separate entity from Nintendo, right? Hopefully Nintendo proper can do a better job.

 

Pokémon as a trademark is joint-owned by Nintendo, Creatures, and Game Freak; which is why there's legit Pokémon iOS apps and Pokémon games on the Sega Pico, but the main games stay exclusive to Nintendo hardware. That iOS Pokédex app was developed by Creatures and published by Nintendo, so it's as Nintendo Proper as it comes 

 

(also worth noting: it's virtually identical to the 3DS app except that the 3DS one is fifteen bucks up-front and includes everything from the get-go)

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I guess my takeaway is that this will be an interesting experiment for Nintendo because I want to know how they are going to deal with the mess of mobile games right now, which is the entitlement of the customer base for free shit and the insane amount of hardware differences. Android stuff is just a mess of different hardware all with different OS versions and iOS store is already diluted with clones of NIntendo stuff. WIndows Phone, who even knows? There's like nothing major in terms of games on the Windows App store.

 

I think of NIntendo as a company who ensures the quality of their games partly because they know the device they are made for in and out and have a control over it. Then again all this be is just them dumping a bunch of virtual console games on app stores.

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So I've been thinking about how I feel about this, and ultimately I'm excited about it. I have a 3DS and a Wii U, but if I could play quality Nintendo games on my phone as well, that's just dandy. Also, the idea of Nintendo finally having a neat, cohesive and all-encompassing account system is very welcome. A lotta people are questioning whether the gameplay of Mario/Donkey Kong fits on a smartphone environment, but I think Iwata made it clear that only the characters and settings will transfer over, and the gameplay elements will be more in line with what is expected from current android/iOS games. Having said that, I've enjoyed several DS/3DS games that are controlled almost entirely via touch screen so there's no reason why something like Phantom Hourglass (basically you only need to use a button to access the menu/activate equipment switching in that game) can't be done on a smartphone. 

 

I'm also looking forward to hearing more about NX. I think it was smart for Iwata to just drop that but not have it take away from the focus of the conference. I'm hoping that it is the handheld/home console hybrid that people have been speculating about. Something with a nice sharp screen (I suppose 720p isn't farfetched given the 480p screen of the Wii U gamepad) and as beefy a processor as can fit in a tablet-sized device but could hook up (wireless/via HDMI) to a TV. Essentially, something similar to the Wii U but with the main components inside the controller itself so that it can be played entirely independently from the TV/home setting.

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Then again all this be is just them dumping a bunch of virtual console games on app stores.

 

They've explicitly stated they're not doing straight-up ports of existing games.

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The NX drums up images of an Nvidia Shield-alike for me, but with a more integrated and weirdly shaped screen. If it does end up being a 'homeheld' console, making it affordable with decent specs is going to be a nightmare, unless there's some crazy Wii-like gimmick that can be powered by Wii U tech in a new form.

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I really wonder if the kids playing all their free games on iPhones give a hot flying fuck about Donkey Kong.

 

To us, yeah, Pokemon on an iPad is a no-brainer, but can you say that about children born post-2000? Even outside of branding, Nintendo is out of the loop on how mobile games are designed. Crossy Road is not a modern Nintendo style game, and I'm not sure if Threes is either. Clash of Clans definitely isn't.

 

My opinion here isn't very informed, and I'm sure this room has plenty of things to correct me on, but "Nintendo signs mobile deal" is a very impotent headline to me.

On the out-there dream that they announce a brilliant new Advance Wars, then yeah I'll call that a day one perch just like everyone else, of course!

 

I feel like you're making a few weird assumptions. Firstly, that the mobile games will not be free. Given how the mobile market works, I'm sure DeNA will advise strongly for free games based on microtransactions. I'm more worried that Nintendo will make good games that will ultimately make no money from microtransactions, because good games don't, it's the shitty ones that  get all the money.

 

Secondly, and I think most importantly, kids do still care about pokemon. They just care a lot less about Charizard, and a lot more about Greninja. Pokemon is pretty amazing at staying relevant to kids. 

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Yeah, I'm not sure where the "Pokémon isn't relevant to kids" thing is coming from. Pokémon is the second-best selling video game franchise of all time after Mario, and it likely makes more money than any other game-central franchise in the world given how much merchandise there is.

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I think that the only thing that has stopped Pokemon from being a cultural force of nature on the level of Minecraft or CoC is the limited availability re: platforms. It's still wildly popular, just not nearly as exposed as Notch being on the front cover of business magazines or CoC getting Super Bowl ads.

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That seems a weird conclusion to me. Pokémon is on airplanes. There are Pikachu parades. Comedians make Pokémon jokes.

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They've explicitly stated they're not doing straight-up ports of existing games.

 

They also explicitly stated they would never make mobile games. 

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Nintendo has trouble releasing old games for Virtual Console (a move that would only seem to make them boatloads of money for effectively zero work, by all accounts). What indication is there that they'd go against what they explicitly stated and seek a challenge presumably even more mounting than releasing an old ROM on a platform they own with a controller with all the same buttons as the original?

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So I've been thinking about how I feel about this, and ultimately I'm excited about it.

Haha I came in here to post this but for very different reasons from you. I still am not very (or at all) interested in mobile games, but, BUT, this shows a sign of Nintendo being aware of the times more than any time I can think of recently. I've always liked their games, but when it comes to things like, you know, the rest of the world, they can feel a bit out-dated. It's gonna be interesting to see what happens from here on out. We get the new account shit this fall, according to Iwata? That's not really that far away! Bring it on. U:

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They also explicitly stated they would never make mobile games. 

 

When? I'm honestly asking, because I don't remember them explicitly making that statement. They probably have, but talking about if they'll *ever* make a game for another platform is a bit different from actually talking about a platform and stating their immediate goals for it, which is to not just port games.

 

I'm not saying they won't *ever* port games to mobile.. But it seems like their current goal is to make new games specifically for smartphones.

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They did say somethign to the effect of "if we ever stop making games for Nintendo platforms, we'll stop making games period", but that was a long time ago, pre-Wii, I think? And it may have come with the caveat that Nintendo platforms are already dead or something.

 

But besides that, I dunno. It's entirely possible they made such a statement. It sounds like something they'd say, hah.

 

That said, I think shitty ports are the least likely to make the big bucks, so even if they went back on their word here, it seems like it'd be a poor decision, yeah?

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That said, I think shitty ports are the least likely to make the big bucks, so even if they went back on their word here, it seems like it'd be a poor decision, yeah?

 

Agreed! :tup:

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