Nintendo surprised the gaming community - and likely the gaming industry - today with the announcement that they will be creating games for smartphones.
The move came as something of a surprise as the company's president and CEO Satoru Iwata has always seemed reluctant to move into the mobile arena, despite calls from shareholders to do so. In many ways that is understandable, given that the company's handheld business has continued to be a massive success story, with the 3DS said to have shipped more than 50 million units as of the end of last year (a figure likely to have jumped with the recent release of the revised 'New Nintendo 3DS' model).
That said, Nintendo has been experimenting with more mobile friendly games and business models in recent times. 3DS titles Rusty's Real Deal Baseball and the recent Pokemon Shuffle have experimented with free to play models (and experiment is definitely the right word for the former's idiosyncratic payment system). A Pokemon Trading Card Game app has also made its way to iOS - at the time suggesting a minor slackening of Nintendo's policies towards other formats.
The new deal will see Nintendo partnering with Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA to produce mobile titles. The two companies will also collaborate on a new cross-format membership service - a likely explanation for the recent retirement of the Club Nintendo service. Many gamers will be hoping this will also be a positive step considering Nintendo's digital policies are often frustrating and fractured.
Nintendo, thankfully, will be developing the games themselves, with DeNA in charge of some support services thanks to their experience with mobile formats. Another positive is that Iwata has said ports of existing games are not being considered - a relief given a vast majority of Nintendo's games would struggle on a touch screen (exceptions like WarioWare Touched aside).
Hopefully this will mean Nintendo will be keenly aware of both the advantages and disadvantages of mobile formats. Given the imaginative likes of Year Walk, Monument Valley, The Room and Ridiculous Fishing have proven mobile is a comfortable fit for more offbeat and ambitious titles, one can only imagine Nintendo will be able to smartly experiment in the mobile arena.
And, naturally, the move is likely to be a very financially lucrative one, given Nintendo's extremely well-known franchises and reputation. There have been plenty of mobile blockbusters, and no doubt Nintendo already have a significant advantage before any details of the games themselves have been revealed.
For those concerned about Nintendo moving away from the traditional console market, however, have no fear. Iwata also announced today that the company is indeed at work on a new games console.
The company has only released its codename - the NX - and says we'll have to wait until next year for any more information. So it remains to be seen whether it will be a new handheld, a home console or indeed a hybrid of the two. It is said to be a brand new concept, so it's fair to expect something that's a little different to the PS4 or Xbox One.
Given the consumer confusion over the underperforming Wii U (many seemingly unaware it was a new console, despite its unusual controller and increasingly impressive software line-up) it's probably fair to expect Nintendo to give their console a name that clearly differentiates it from its predecessors. What form it will take, however, will almost definitely hold some surprises - if today's announcement proves anything, it is that Nintendo can still shock us after all these years.
