Nintendo to start developing smartphone games in partnership with Japanese mobile giant DeNA: Reuters

As per the statement, the two companies will jointly make smartphone games featuring Nintendo’s characters. Rather than porting games meant for the Wii U or 3DS to the smartphones, the companies will be making these games from scratch.Nintendo has long resisted temptations to move away from its console gaming traditions, but it has finally paid heed to its investors’ call and has joining hands DeNA, a Japanese mobile gaming company. Although the company has produced many famous games, they have been eclipsed by titles from Sony’s PlayStation, and Microsoft’s Xbox.

DeNa is a startup that was conceived way back in 1999 and has recently lost its traction as it focuses only on the online gaming stream. Nintendo and DeNa will be buying shares worth $181.4 million from each other enabling the latter to acquire 10 percent stakes while DeNA will get control over 1.2 percent of the shares.

According to Reuters, in addition to new games, the two companies are also working on a cross-platform service compatible with smartphones, tablets, PCs, and Nintendo’s consoles. “This will allow us to build a bridge between smart devices and gaming consoles,” Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told the publication. “It doesn’t mean smart devices will eat away at gaming consoles, it will create an entirely new type of demand.”

While this is a new direction for Nintendo, it isn’t shying away from its roots, and is said to be working on a new gaming platform, codenamed “NX.” Details about the platform are however non-existent at the moment.

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