Topic: Nintendo Announces Partnership with DeNA (mobile company)

Live Conference Stream

TOKYO, JAPAN - March 17, 2015 - Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 7974) and DeNA Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 2432) today entered into a business and capital alliance to develop and operate new game apps for smart devices and build a new multi-device membership service for consumers worldwide.

Leveraging the strength of Nintendo's intellectual property (IP) and game development skills in combination with DeNA's world-class expertise in mobile games, both companies will develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo's IP, including its iconic game characters, for smart devices. The alliance is intended to complement Nintendo's dedicated video game systems business and extend Nintendo's reach into the vast market of smart device users worldwide. Under the alliance, DeNA will also be able to strengthen its gaming business at a global scale by leveraging Nintendo's IP. To ensure the quality of game experience that consumers expect from this alliance of Nintendo and DeNA, only new original games optimized for smart device functionality will be created, rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U home console or the Nintendo 3DS portable system.

In order to create completely new game experiences for smart devices, all Nintendo IP will be eligible for development and exploration by the alliance. As these consumers enjoy the unique kind of gameplay found only with Nintendo, they will have the opportunity to explore even more premium experiences on Nintendo's dedicated video game platforms. Information on upcoming games and availability will be forthcoming.

Nintendo and DeNA also plan to develop an online membership service that is accessible from smart devices, PC and Nintendo systems, such as the Nintendo 3DS portable system and the Wii U home console. The membership service, which is targeted to launch in the fall of 2015, will be built on DeNA's extensive experience and capabilities in online membership services.

As part of the long-term relationship and commitment by each company, Nintendo and DeNA have also agreed to form a capital alliance. Under the capital alliance, Nintendo will acquire 15,081,000 of DeNA's treasury shares, which corresponds to 10.00 percent of its total outstanding stock, for a total of approximately 22 billion yen. DeNA will simultaneously acquire 1,759,400 of Nintendo's treasury shares, which corresponds to 1.24 percent of its outstanding stock, for a total of approximately 22 billion yen. The payment is due April 2, 2015.

Take away notes:

1) Apps featuring Nintendo characters are coming to smartphones. They will mostly be developed by DeNA and be originally made for smartphones. No ports.

2) The partnership also includes an online subscription service, accessible through PC, phone, tablet, and yes, your 3DS or Wii U. This is likely a unified account system, a replacement to Club Nintendo, or both.

3) Nintendo has bought a 10% stake in DeNA. In return, DeNA has received a 1.24% stake in Nintendo (fun fact, Sony is the biggest shareholder of DeNA).

4) The end is not quite nigh. I think.

they also announced the codename of the next console/handhelds, NX.

The times they are a changin'

Thanks. Will try to update the OP as new information comes in.

Also, obligatory sensationalism:

Honestly doesn't surprise me. Thinking about it, I was always weirded out how Gamefreak putting the Pokemon TCG thing on iOS didn't become way bigger news. I mean, it isn't big news, but I expected people to make it this way.

I am sighing at this a bit, because Nintendo going this direction is largely the fault of handheld gaming trying to go in the worst direction possible. iOS gaming to me will always be this contrast to Steam, whereas Steam does everything right (...or at least did, they're still above the rest regardless) in order to make an afforadable downloadable gaming space with massive success, iOS exists to allow the worst and luckiest to succeed and almost no one else. But honestly for as much as a super serious "WILL THEY OR WON'T THEY" thing this has been for...what 2 years now? It's never been something that I felt was worth caring about (like most of iOS gaming). The fact that they just out of nowhere announced that they're working on a new gaming system is pretty clearly a "hey we're not leaving our first party hardware focus" sign. It's similar to the QOL thing, a way to make money and stay relevant.

I guess Pokemon Shuffle 2 will take a lot of people's money or something, who cares.

I'm happy they are going this route. Porting games over never made much sense. Instead going the route of having someone else make original games is perfect. What is even better is that they are integrating this with the membership service, an idea I've been advocating for for a while now: use the mobile platform to give small discounts on dedicated platforms.

"But....but...if people can buy a $2.99 Nintendo game on their phone, they won't need to buy a Wii U or Zelda U!! RIP Nintendo!!!"

• Typical NL User

The big problem I had with the "Nintendo should go mobile" crowd was that they always seemed to want Nintendo titles AS IS on mobile and for Nintendo to basically bin their portable platform. That never made sense to me. If they were going to do it they had to create interesting content specifically built for mobile while at the same time implementing cross-buy and cross-play. It seems like that's precisely what they're doing. So I'm happy.

Considering there's 12,000 unofficial emulators on iOS anyway, I think that ship has sailed. More likely, this is a move to capture that market. People right now are buying illegal Mario games on their phones for a dollar. Maybe Nintendo finally realized that instead of spending money on lawyers to shut that down, they could just make money by doing it themselves.

Not surprised. They had to embrace it eventually. Glad that it seems to just be small stuff though.

To be fair, a few of Nintendo's recent games have been very close to the mobile framework. Quick play sessions, three stars as a point system. It some cases it seems that Nintendo would've had very strong mobile offerings, but they didn't have the opportunities to publish them and as a result, they don't fit as well on the platform they were released on.

I'll start with my thoughts on this.

As I said, this is very surprising news and that because of two things in mind...
1.What happens to the 3DS?
2.Will this ruin Nintendo's loyalty towards us beloved fans?

Now I for one don't know what to think about this because of it being so sudden. But one thing that concerns me is if the games are to be made in smart phone, are they going to be exclusively in the phone or is it something that I can stream from the phone to the actual Nintendo systems? Even better, how can this be any better than the DS family or the Wii family? If there aren't two screens in the system with little to no innovation, its rather underwhelming and ruins the backwards compatibility. Because before the DS, all games were in one screen so there wasn't much of an issue there. But now that the DS and 3DS have two, it leaves me to wonder whether this is the successor to the 3DS or rather something completely different as Iwata stated earlier?

Having IP's porting to Smart devices also won't make quick money because titles like Angry Birds easily dominate the App gaming. Even the ports of the Sonic games can't compete with the likes of Flappy Bird.

So does this mean that its a waste to get the N3DS XL now? Because again, the problem the Dsi had was the lack of exclusive games and so Nintendo jumped to the 3DS because no one was missing out on the Dsi games much. But for the 3DS case, that would be foolish to do because of how much better it is compared to the originals and the fact that it makes it easier for devs and gamers to make and play games on.

Something that doesn't seem right is how Nintendo could experiment on the smart phones when it barely did anything on them to begin with.

As for the membership stuff, couldn't care less because again, unless Nintendo does it like gifting games and whatnot, I don't see it being any better than Nintendo club which is something I doubt Nintendo could fix on that but I digress.

So those are my thoughts on it.

You know, I'd be game for a rayman jungle/fiesta run or sonic runners type 2d Mario platformed to play on my Moto G.

I'd argue that they've done it longer than mobile games have existed. I remember a few Game Boy games that were quick to play. Heck, Warioware comes to mine right now.

Somebody's happy at least...

http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ntdoy

I think this is a smart move. Just licence their properties out to a mobile game publisher who will make their mobile games so Nintendo can continue to make their console/handheld games.

nintendo will do what sony was unable to
combine cellphone apps with games

sony did try it with playstation mobile, but failed in the end
nintendo is trying to make it work (they are even using the same company sony used before to develop their mobile platform)

i insist, if nintendo were to develop a table... a simple table... called Nintable... it would sell millions... simply because is nintendo

Hah

I just hope Nintendo forces DeNA to up the quality of their art direction.

I was looking at their selection on the Play Store, and even their other licensed games have a very lazy, cheap, flash look to them.

I wish they had teamed up with Colopl instead (another Japanese mobile giant, who puts much more thought into their art direction, from what I've seen).

Nintendo's stock went up by 27.5% percent today