Nintendo x DeNA Conference; Nintendo games on mobile devices, New "Project NX" platform announced

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Nintendo already has some F2P games like Steel Diver, Rusty's Real Deal Baseball and Pokemon Shuffle.

The thing with those games is that from what I've heard, it was most likely Nintendo testing out different f2p models.

 

-A F2P mode and a sort-of pass that lets you get the full experience

-A demo of a game followed by additional minigames to buy

-A puzzle game taking tropes from things like energy systems to secondary currency

[Solkia]

Pokemon Shuffle is about as F2P as Rumble Fighter.

[Salamander]

I thought it was pretty ironic that the same day Nintendo announced a Mario version of Puzzle & Dragons without any of the exploitative freemium systems then they also announced a Pokemon ripoff of Puzzle & Dragons that goes arm-deep into freemium.

 

Anyway.  I am concerned that the use of mobile here could be a slippery slope, the beginning of a race to the bottom, but presumably it's for that reason that they've been careful to soft-announce the NX today, so we know they aren't jumping ship to mobile.  Yet.

 

Also, I was kind of surprised that they weren't just shifting their huge back catalogue of games onto a cheap mobile emulator, but I guess there's already so much ripping off of that sort going on already that it wouldn't be the guaranteed money-spinner it should be.  But on the subject of who's going to be responsible for developing the smartphone games, this is the beginning of my worry because it's actually confirmed that Nintendo's doing it themselves:

 

Speaking in a press conference this morning, Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata confirmed Nintendo would take charge of the actual game development - the front-end, gameplay and UI that players actually see.

DeNA, meanwhile, will be working on supporting Nintendo by providing back-end services and server knowledge.

 

In other words, yes, resources are being sapped from their console development sections for this.  It could be only the beginning.

[Tornado]

The main problem here is that mobile gaming cannot support "real" games. Time and time again the Play store (and to a lesser extent the iOS marketplace) has shown that people would rather spend 5 dollars on a stripped down version of something familiar loaded with ads and pay to win shit and bitch about how bad it is than pay as little as $20 and buy a real game.

Nintendo absolutely should get on board and port some games. Something like the DS Pokemon games are old enough that it's hard to find them new, but modern enough that if you bumped up the display resolution they could compete with most mobile games graphically. I would buy HeartGold in a minute. They would also be trivial to port. But no matter how much people say they want something like that, most people would bitch about how "expensive" they are. Even games like TWEWY, where Square put a lot of time in adapting a heavily DS-centric game to mobile and which still sells used for about as much a it sold new, was absolutely raked over the coals because $18 is just too much to expect people to pay for a game on those platforms.

[Patticus]

I don't know how to feel about this development. I suppose, from a business perspective, that it must make good sense, or Nintendo wouldn't be doing it.

 

I just don't know enough about DeNA or the goal of this alliance.

 

Edit: Reassurances from GRcade...

 

It's good news, Nintendo are restructuring and opening up, this should help towards securing their future

 

Phew! I can be a little more confident and hopeful now.

[Daisy-Fan]

Good step from nintendo, Also they are heading to PC if am not mistaking right? Steam will probably amazing for them.

[Blue Blood]

The main problem here is that mobile gaming cannot support "real" games. Time and time again the Play store (and to a lesser extent the iOS marketplace) has shown that people would rather spend 5 dollars on a stripped down version of something familiar loaded with ads and pay to win shit and bitch about how bad it is than pay as little as $20 and buy a real game.

Nintendo absolutely should get on board and port some games. Something like the DS Pokemon games are old enough that it's hard to find them new, but modern enough that if you bumped up the display resolution they could compete with most mobile games graphically. I would buy HeartGold in a minute. They would also be trivial to port. But no matter how much people say they want something like that, most people would bitch about how "expensive" they are. Even games like TWEWY, where Square put a lot of time in adapting a heavily DS-centric game to mobile and which still sells used for about as much a it sold new, was absolutely raked over the coals because $18 is just too much to expect people to pay for a game on those platforms.

Quote for truth.

This is the number one issue with mobile gaming. The devices aren't physically built for real games, but that aside people just don't want to spend real money, ergo the profit isn't there for the developers and publishers. This is the real reason mobile gaming is what it is. Yesterday my brother grimaced at the thought of spending a full £2.99 on FNAF for mobile. Its exactly the same as the PC version, and he agreed that £7.99 was a fair price. Its bull that the market has gone that way.

[SuperLink]

I can understand why people don't want to pay a lot for mobile games because as I mentioned before they often don't run well compared to console versions, they drain the battery super quick, or they're just too watered down. It's much less likely that the consumer is going to have faith that what they spend money on will be worth it because there is a LOT of shit in app stores that wants peoples' money and people inevitably will be spending £3-5 on crap, while ignoring the £20 gold because they're worried hey, what if that game's crap too? The FNAF example is good because it's just not the kind of game a lot of gamers would wanna experience on mobile.

 

TWEWY and Chrono Trigger are good examples too, people dip into cheap mobile games because "why not?". They're cheap, they're often not gonna set you back much unless you're a sucker for microtransactions. There is less trust in value for money in the mobile market, which is part of why Nintendo avoided it and is also probably why they aren't going to make ports. People don't wanna risk more than £9 when they don't have faith the game will be good (which is largely the fault of app stores being totally open and not having quality control or assurance).

 

They don't want to devalue their console games, basically. They know the value standard for mobile games and aren't willing to release their full games for prices like that (even though NES games should be worth that much on VC anyway but whatever Nintendo love money too much to charge decent prices for NES games).

 

I know Pokémon would sell shitloads on iOS but I wouldn't spend over £10 for a game I'd much rather just carry my DS around to play. ...And I also don't think Nintendo would want to sell full Pokémon games for cheap because then people would lose interest in the new full price handheld versions. The franchise would lose its value.

 

This is part of why I believe them when they say they won't do ports and part of why I agree. I think they should do NES ports and maybe some GameBoy ports, but if they ported too many sorta-recent games, people would be far less willing to buy Nintendo systems and spend full price on those games because they're satisfied with owning the cheap mobile version. Of course big Nintendo fans will always support Nintendo systems but Nintendo aren't exactly satisfied with having only them support them. They're going to want to be very careful making sure that whatever they release on mobiles doesn't devalue the appeal of their console games. Ideally they'd like to increase the appeal of console games with their mobile games but that doesn't sound realistic to me.

 

EDIT: This post really lacked focus but basically this could go horribly for Nintendo's console value if they go all in with ports or full games.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

Honestly, I'm wait and see on this, however, this does seem to be another(Albeit larger) extension of the whole licensing out thing. Nintendo Isn't Going mobile, they are licensing out IPS(with careful control) to an experienced developer to make tie-in and advertising games to increase brand awareness

 

Also Pokémon Shuffle was Gamefreak, not Nintendo, they are two separate companies you know

[Indigo Rush]

So when is Mario Runners going to be announced

[SuperLink]

Also Pokémon Shuffle was Gamefreak, not Nintendo, they are two separate companies you know

Actually it was Genius Sonority who are owned partially by Nintendo and partially by The Pokémon Company (who are in turn made up of equal parts Nintendo, GameFreak and Creatures). You're right that most Pokémon stuff is not Nintendo-developed though.

 

Also on the subject of Shuffle, I've been playing that a lot lately and the microtransactions are extremely easy to ignore unless you're looking for them. They pretty much never get shoved in your face and I've never felt like the game was frustrating because I wasn't giving it money.

 

It's not exactly a great game but it's far less annoying and invasive than most other f2p games I've played (including the Sonic ones).

[Sami]

It's honestly about time they did this.

[PSI Wind]

It's amazing how many people are surprised that Nintendo is making a new console "already". It's like they don't realize the PS4 and X1 are already outdated and Sony and Microsoft are also already doing R&D on the next console.

[Willsy]

I'm glad that they are finally doing an account system, I can't tell you how worrying it is that if my system kicks the bucket I'll lose all of my digitally purchased content, and would have to run hurdles and fire rings with Nintendo's customer service to get them back. It's 2015 and they really should have had one with the Wii to start with.

Still, better late than never. I just hope that there will be some way to transfer already purchased content to the new account system, though I think that might be an unrealistic expectation. Who knows though, stranger things have happened, like that time Nintendo decided to team up with DeNA to make mobile games and a new online infrastructure.....oh wait....

I'm also interested to see what 'NX' is. I'm willing to wager that it's their next 'handheld', as AMD did say that they are manufacturing an ARM chip for a gaming console starting 2016.

It's amazing how many people are surprised that Nintendo is making a new console "already". It's like they don't realize the PS4 and X1 are already outdated and Sony and Microsoft are also already doing R&D on the next console.

Usually the big three begin R&D on their next system as soon as they launch a new one. It takes time to develop a console and I would not be surprised if NX is very deep into development already. A successor for the Wii U is almost certainly also in the works.

[JaidynReiman]

I don't see the problem. I think its great that we can get some micro games featuring various Nintendo characters on Mobile devices. This gets Nintendo EXPOSURE. Yes, they may not be the best games, but they can act as promotions for Nintendo's bigger titles. For example, Mario Kart Mobile. "Like this? Want a better experience? Try Mario Kart 8 on Wii U!"

 

 

This is a very good thing for Nintendo. By expanding into the Mobile market it allows them to increase their exposure and allows them to make more money. It could also get people interested in Nintendo products who weren't already. Microsoft is doing the same thing with their Windows 10 system.

 

 

One thing that would work well that I can think of: Mario VS. Donkey Kong, of course. But if they bring Paon back, they could do more of the pegboard DK games; King of Swing and Jungle Climber. Those really felt more like micro games than anything with the art style and overall design. Naturally a micro version of Mario Kart would also work well, or perhaps a new Four Swords Zelda game. Pokemon dabbles in everything so that's not difficult to explore.

[mikeblastdude]

My initial thought on this is that a WarioWare game would be perfect for mobile.

 

But yeah, I'm definitely interested to see what comes of this.

[JaidynReiman]

My initial thought on this is that a WarioWare game would be perfect for mobile.

 

But yeah, I'm definitely interested to see what comes of this.

Agreed. WarioWare and some Mario sports games would work well on Mobile.

[Salamander]

As well as some of Nintendo's more arcadey experiences, like the aforementioned Pokemon Shuffle and - well, I never played it, but Potzol's Puzzle / Ketzal's Corridors from what I remember of gameplay footage seems like a good fit.  It might also encourage mobile developers who can't afford to move to the eShop to publish under Nintendo's mobile auspices.

[Junko]

Nintendo's Stock Skyrocketing, up almost as much as 29%

Nintendo shares were up as much as 29% on Tuesday following an announcement from the company that it would start making games for mobile devices.

 

Until now, Nintendo had refused to bring its games to platforms outside its own consoles. On Tuesday, it announced a partnership with a Japanese mobile gaming company called DeNA to start developing new smartphone and tablet games featuring Nintendo characters.

 

Nintendo and DeNA also invested $181 million in each other, giving Nintendo a 10% stake in DeNA and DeNA about a 1% stake in Nintendo, according to Reuters.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Looks like the investors got what they wanted. Nintendo is already reaping the benefit of this deal.

[The Kid]

I'm weirdly okay with this? Like, as long as it isn't full fledged games with virtual buttons then put whatever side projects you want on Ios. 

[CelerinaTheJackrabbit]

Totally fine with this. Like most have said, fairly certain it won't be any type of really big game on there. I mean, all they have to do is look at the Phantom Hourglass game. Fun, sure, but annoying to control.

 

Now imagine that with your thumb instead. Chaos.

 

So yeah, I'd be cool with minigames. Like perhaps some stuff like Pokemon Shuffle and the like. Good little advertisement, is all.

[DarkRula]

This probably sounds like a stupid idea, but I was thinking of a way Nintendo could advertise while doing something new.

Tower Defence game. It plays the reverse of a normal Mario platformer, so Mario and co have to stop Bowser from reaching Peach's castle. It would start at World 8-4 from the original Super Mario Bros., but in this game it would be 1-1 [or even just level 1]. The various projectile power ups would form the towers, with a Mushroom housing Toads for infantry. The aim is just like any other tower defence. Stop the advancing party [in this case Bowser's troops] from reaching a gate of some sort.

Best part is, most of Nintendo's series would fit this mold in some way. Not that I'm suggesting they saturate the mobile market with tower defence games or anything.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

Oh Reddit...

 

[goku262002]

Oh Reddit...

 

C'mon thats funny and you know it! XD