Nintendo going mobile - Report
Japanese paper says company will make free smartphone demos of Nintendo-exclusive titles
Earlier this month, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors the company was rethinking how to use mobile platforms to grow its gaming business. Some details of such an approach are expected this week, according to a Nikkei newspaper report translated by analyst Dr. Serkan Toto.
The paper reports that Nintendo will be launching a mobile initiative this year that will use smartphones as a way to market its console games. Part of the strategy calls for delivering videos and information about new games to mobile users, but the company is also expanding that to include playable demos of its console titles. The demos will reportedly be free, intended only to hook players and convince them to purchase the full games to play on Nintendo hardware.
More details are expected to come this Thursday during a briefing for investors.
Nintendo will not put demos on mobile devices. It's rather silly to even consider it given the major differences in interface. Either you design a game for mobile or 3DS/Wii U. You don't design a game for 3DS/Wii U and then add some ad hoc control scheme that has almost zero representation of the actual product on the console.
What they might do is publish videos on mobile or even create complementary apps at most but demos don't make any sense whatsoever.
A Nintendo Direct app, including release dates, mini-games, trailers and information for upcoming releases might work--especially if Nintendo start to tie this into a central account, and launch Miiverse and eShop apps for smart devices. Their thinking of what a platform is needs to change. It's no longer just the box, but the all round service you provide accessed through a variety of devices.
Sure, it makes me nostalgic for the days when Western mags would reproduce screenshots from Japanese mags and make wild guesses, but things have moved on now.