Nintendo has decided to postpone the roll out of their first smartphone game to March from end of this year, as originally planned, delaying the company’s plans to plunge in on the growing market for games on smartphones. Nintendo delayed the launch in order to better promote it.
Nintendo’s president Tatsumi Kimishima stated during a strategy briefing investor presentation that the first game to be launched would be Miitomo, which he described as a “friendly conversation starter.” It will facilitate the users to create their own avatars, named as Mii, which will reciprocate with the user and share the information with the other avatars created by other persons registered as the user’s friends.
According to a copy of Kimishima’s presentation published on the company’s website.”The Mii asks you a variety of questions and communicates your answers with your Friends’ Mii,”
Though the gamers fraternity has been disappointed with that news as they had expected the popular character Mario to figure in the first smartphone game from Nintendo.
Nintendo’s current president Kimishima took over the reign from Satoru Iwata after his demise earlier this year. Iwata led Nintendo’s moves into smartphone games expecting that the new games, built in collaboration with the Japanese mobile gaming developer company DeNA, would help boosting the sales of its consoles, as users will “become familiar with the charms of video games.”
However, Nintendo not only eyeing for to release their first smartphone game next March but also plans to release four additional titles by March 2017 with the virtue of partnership with DeNA . And while Miitomo will be available for free download, other releases will be conventional paid games.
The investor briefing event also provided a few other details about Nintendo’s new mobile endeavor, most notably the fact that Nintendo will use a cloud transfer system to share data between mobile and console games
Nintendo’s president Kimishima on Thursday further stated that the company was setting up a membership service, called “My Nintendo,” which would allow users to connect through a cloud across a variety of devices including smartphones and consoles “My Nintendo will work as a bridge between dedicated game systems and smart devices,” Kimishima said.
Under an unique point program to be launched by Nintendo , users can also earn points across both consoles and smart devices and will allow users to carry points from one device to another. Points can be earned not only for buying software but also from playing the games, unlike an earlier propaganda that terminated in September.
Besides company’s primary consoles business, Nintendo is also aiming to cash in and make profits from its intellectual property like theme parks, smartphone games, visual content and merchandise. “We are planning to maximize the value of Nintendo IP, which has traditionally been used mainly for our dedicated video game systems,” said Kimishima.
