Nintendo Fans Need Mobile Initiatives To Succeed

<p>The Wii U is struggling&comma; Nintendo fans are weary&comma; and Mario is totally ready to go to another castle&period; Nintendo is stuck between a brick block and a Goomba&comma; and everyone is waiting to see what they do next&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>We may have that answer&comma; at least on the mobile front&comma; as given by the recent news of Nintendo’s first mobile game being made with DeNA&colon; <em>Miitomo<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Earlier this year Nintendo announced their partnership with DeNA&comma; a mobile services company&comma; to establish online services for Nintendo products alongside the creation of original games for mobile devices&period; During the reveal&comma; Nintendo made it clear that they would not simply port existing games from their deep roster of franchises to mobile devices&semi; instead Nintendo will create original games that star legacy characters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 300px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;upload&period;wikimedia&period;org&sol;wikipedia&sol;commons&sol;b&sol;bc&sol;DeNA&lowbar;logo&period;png" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"300" height&equals;"135" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;DeNA Logo&comma; DeNa&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The goal is to attract Nintendo’s untapped market of smart phone gamers&comma; in the hopes of garnering their attention to Nintendo’s traditional gaming efforts on home consoles and dedicated handheld devices&period; The greatly missed Satoru Iwata&comma; late Nintendo president&comma; explained the need to create games that lend themselves to smartphone gaming&comma; so as not to haphazardly push games better suited to dedicated gaming platforms&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>You can imagine my surprise when Nintendo announced that their very first title being worked on in collaboration with DeNA is <em>Miitomo<&sol;em>&period; A free-to-start communications application that features Mii characters will be Nintendo’s first foray into the smart phone market&quest; I won’t discount <em>Miitomo<&sol;em>’s ability to succeed in the mobile market—Nintendo has had its fair share of unlikely successes&colon; the Wii Remote&comma; the Nintendo DS&comma; and games like Wii Fit and Brain Age—but it’s hard to imagine that a somewhat generic social application with the ability to share information and pose questions about common interests will excite any gamer&comma; seasoned or not&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I agree with Nintendo’s efforts to approach the mobile gaming space in a cautious manner&period; It would be reckless of them to squander their legacy IP by throwing old games or new fully fledged titles onto smart phones just to claim a piece of the ever-growing mobile market&period; A greedy act like this would only be done to generate short-term profits&period; Nintendo needs to make the casual market understand why dedicated consoles play games that cost a premium&comma; unlike the free-to-play or &dollar;0&period;99 price tags attached to the typical smart phone title&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>To achieve this understanding and to continue to promote its existing IP&comma; Nintendo would have been wise to create their first mobile game that features a recognizable character&period; Maybe Nintendo’s confidence in the mobile space is too delicate to push out games featuring <em>Super Mario<&sol;em> as their first effort&period; However&comma; they certainly could have used lesser key characters&comma; say Samus or Pikmin&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure style&equals;"width&colon; 979px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img src&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;pikmin&period;nintendo&period;com&sol;&lowbar;ui&sol;images&sol;whats-a-pikmin&sol;characters&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"979" height&equals;"312" &sol;><figcaption class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Pikmin 3&comma; Nintendo&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Either way&comma; Nintendo is struggling with creating an identity for itself&comma; both for gamers who pay little interest to the gaming giant and for those who have been long-time supporters&period; As a long-time supporter&comma; I want to see Nintendo succeed&comma; and aside from their upcoming NX console&comma; the way Nintendo will succeed is by becoming relevant again&period; I just don’t see how they could possibly hope to generate a greater reputation with a game like <em>Miitomo<&sol;em> as their first effort with DeNA&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The impetus of Nintendo’s success lies with its ability to keep current fans interested and its mobile efforts effective&period; Earlier we learned that Nintendo will be releasing two <em>Zelda<&sol;em> games next year—one an HD remaster and the other an original title—but that won’t be enough to save the Wii U or their weakening stance against Sony and Microsoft&period; The fruition of Nintendo’s plans post-Wii U will determine their success&comma; and if <em>Miitomo<&sol;em> is any indication of what’s to come&comma; I hope that the crazy toy makers have more impressive offerings in mind&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;