Nintendo Will Do Well On Mobile Because That's Where Its Core Audience Is Now, Claims Analyst

Just. No.

I think that mobile might come back and haunt them.people get these games will not buy a console unless it is like smartglass too with the NX.

Now I'm not a fan of mobile gaming, but I can easily see how it has become a major part of the industry and a large potential blue-water market. I don't mind things like Mario Kart appearing on mobile, as long as Nintendo continues to support its consoles sufficiently. With some of the NX rumours talking about connectivity with mobiles & tablets, maybe there will be games that will interact between the two platforms but can be used on their own. Imagine a Maro Kart on NX that you purchase and play as you would a normal console game, but you can transfer karts, characters and tracks to a companion Mario Kart Mobile. Also any additional content released on the mobile version would also be available as DLC for the NX. However, those who don't want to buy the NX version can just grab the mobile one and go through the whole FTP malarkey.

Those who like it will have to go through all their micro transactions whilst those who paid for the console experience will not miss out.

@andrew20 Agreed, NX would pretty much need to be the Wii U 2 for Nintendo to take advantage of the mobile users.

Nintendo's core audience is on mobile now? What?

Also, who the heck wants Mario Kart on mobile?

Nintendo could own mobile gaming.

Think about it. They would be able to partner with apple exclusively. That would give them early hardware access. Then imagine the best gameplay concepts for mobile devices, have the biggest publicity in the world and sell their games like no tomorrow. Lots of things nintendo could do. They could hit mobile as hard as they want to.

Of course, they would need to become something exclusive in order not to drown in the mess of mediocrity. But I’d easily see apple make such a deal. Goodbye next hardware, I already have you in my pocket. Future, here we come.

Once NX failed, this road rage game will be on mobile.

What's with the duplicate comments?

Also, what is up with the comments?

Hey, is that echo, or am I repeating myself???

What is the assessment of mobile gaming? It seems like we've been hearing about mobile gaming being the next big thing for over 7 years now ever since the angry birds phenomena. For a period, it seemed like there was gold rush of traditional console developers jumping ship to cash in on mobile gaming. Did it work out? Is there a breakout of minecrafts revenue? I single this out because it's on every platform. Is mobile its primary cash generator? Someone! Please, I need answers!!

Unless Nintendo has changed their plans we won't be seeing Mario Kart on mobile,at least for a while anyway.There might be a companion app to go with MK9 but as for an actual new entry ,it ain't going to happen.It's one of if not their biggest IP,they're not going to risk cheapening the brand with a mobile entry.

so many double posts... lol

Though in the end, mobile gaming could be good for them but hopefully it will never be strictly that. You can get some quality games on phones now.

I don't want Mario Kart on my smartphone because the controls suck.

No, core audience is still here on the consoles, thank you very much!

I don't disagree that Mario Kart on mobile could be massive. The devices already have motion sensors, so presumably you'd just need some custom grips for buttons and you're good to go.

I suppose you could make a case that gamers who might have gotten a Wii U or 3ds have moved to mobile, but to say the core audience is there is silly. They are the ones who own Nintendo hardware currently.

Well, I am not on the mobile-phone and I don't want Mariokart on a mobile-phone. By the way: Did he pay any attention: something like Mariokart on mobile isn't happening at the moment (maybe later). First there's Miitomo.

Their real core audience is the millions of Wii U and 3DS owners,the ones who've stuck with them for years.Give us the kind of games we love Nintendo for in the first place and we'll be happy.If the NX is to be a hybrid and they can convince the majority of 3DS owners to upgrade then they will have a successful console.Make it competitive then there is millions who now game elsewhere that can be enticed back.This is Nintendo's real core audience,not the 10's of millions of casuals who bought the Wii ,played it a few times and moved onto IOS and Android.If the NX is to be a competitive console and they have success in the mobile space,then the casuals will come anyway.

Hell no. The Core audience is still on consoles. If he refers to the Wii casual audience, of course they are on mobile, but they aren't reliable customers as anyone with half a common sense can say.
Mario Kart on mobile? What is this guy smokin? Why would they put a flagship title on mobile?!

I hope it won't be a free-to-play Mario Kart game.

Why the hell would I want to play Mario kart on mobile.

Touch screen controls would be a mess. The game would have to be dumbed down so much.

Putting games like Mario kart on mobile would basically help kill of nintendo handheld sales.

@Krisi You got some multi-posting going on there.

People actually pay money for this analysts? Really? So it's better contract a person who actually understand about video games than this kind of person.

No, Nintendo audience is grow up people who now, probably have a PS4 and a 3ds (and maybe a Wii U). The sales are low, because general people, not Nintendo fans, weren't interested about the Wii U.

Except you need your thumb and your index to take advantage of the drift mechanics in Mario Kart. How would you do that on mobiles?

@Nintendian it will be on the ps4 or 5

@Blastcorp64 I don't have time to link specifics, but generally, the old guard is performing... anywhere between okay and terrible with mobile titles. Mostly only certain trends break out and reach successes. It's a very "race to the bottom" sort of market.

This has been discussed for years, but here's a brief link on that:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/221844/Banner_Saga_dev_says_Apple_is_frustrated_with_race_to_the_bottom.php

And some predictions of the future:

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/HollyUrban/20160212/265808/Mobile_quotGame_Makersquot_share_their_2016_industry_predictions.php

Nintendo's audience has moved to other consoles. They need to go third party, and then everyone will be happy.

Also, Nintendo needs to start creating and selling games for mobile, with pricing under $1 per game and relying heavily on in-app purchases.

This is what people want. Really.

Mobile Mariokart would not work at all. I would definitely buy Kirby Mass Attack 2 on mobile though; all touch screen and no buttons!

The description of investors being more positive is interesting.

Not all of it's target audience is on tablet or mobile though. Glad that they haven't thrown in the towel for consoles just yet. Games on mobile might be okay if the tech catches up, but right now battery life on high-end devices is poor and that alone puts me right off.

Nintendo's "core" audience never left Nintendo. Unless by "core" they mean "people who bought a Wii or DS and played it for 5 minutes and then throwing it in a drawer for the rest of eternity but didn't buy a Wii U or 3DS" then yeah sure.

Eek. There's no doubt that the large casual gaming audience that bought the Wii and DS in droves has moved on to smartphones and tablets but they are not the core who buy games such as Zelda, Metroid or Fire Emblem.

Nintendo's CASUAL audience may have died up and left them for mobile, but I think a fair number of their CORE audience, in one way or another, remains. Some haven't purchased anything yet this generation, but that doesn't mean they don't still support the company. For example... I'd love to own a Wii U, but I can't afford it.

In any case, those here who think Nintendo's dabbling in in mobile gaming is somehow a huge mistake are being foolish. Why wouldn't the company want to enter a market where they can score untold millions of dollars in profit? They can do so with very little development or distribution costs - and all of that extra money will enable them to more properly focus on their games and making sure the NX platform is a huge success!!

Nobody, not even Nintendo wants Mario Kart on mobile, so this analyst is a douche in even suggesting it. But, there will be specifically targeted Nintendo IP's that will hopefully entice mobile gamers to come back to Nintendo's consoles for more.

Blizzard struggled to make profits in the mobile market? I guess he doesn't know how much money Hearthstone is bringing in.

Nah, the audience that made Wii sell like it did is on mobile now. Core audience is playing Wii U.

"Its core target group have all migrated to tablet and mobile"
"everybody wants Mario Kart on their mobile"

No and no, I may have both of those devices, but until they have built-in buttons and joysticks, they will never be as good as a dedicated console for gaming. I want Mario kart in whatever hardware makes Nintendo comfortable to do what they do best and better than anyone, which will likely never be a third-party mobile device.

I know I've linked this already, but there are developers who are not so sure that Nintendo will do well in the mobile space:

http://gamasutra.com/blogs/HollyUrban/20160212/265808/Mobile_quotGame_Makersquot_share_their_2016_industry_predictions.php

So it may just be mainly analysts who want Nintendo to do well in the mobile space no matter what, while more realistic assessments from people who actually make games are not so rosy.

As for Pokémon Go, it's a special case because the developer commissioned to make it, Niantic, had to get a 20 million dollars to make it:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/256375/Pokemon_Go_developer_Niantic_secures_20_million_in_funding.php

This is rather ridiculous, isn't it? Why would a mobile game need a $20 million budget? Shouldn't that be allocated towards other, bigger projects?

Well, I am not sure if this guy is right when it comes to a game like Mario Kart. We all say we want it, but at the end of the day we might need to be careful about what we ask for.

My least favorite game in the Mario Kart series was the Wii version if you have to use motion controls. You would pretty much be locked into that control with mobile. Sonic tried their game on mobile, and I hated it.

Mobile gaming is a different animal than console and I would contend even the traditional handheld. I play mobile in about 5 to 10 minute bursts while I am waiting for something. Handheld is what I play on planes or long trips.

Just because Nintendo has led in the handheld market doesn't mean those games are going to translate to smartphones, but I think they know that. With a deliberate strategy, mobile can be great for them, but giving a blanket statement saying they sell billions if we get Mario Kart mobile seems a little premature especially coming from a supposed gaming consultant.

Guys if ya make dup comments, would be NOICE and delete the extra ones ya made :/

I disagree, consle games are still popular. The way we play mobile games are when we are waiting for our food or something like that. I find this ironic because I'm typing on a phone..

Oh what utter BS. No actual gamer spends much time or money on phone crap

@erv why Apple? Screw Apple and their closed ecosystem. Nintendo would lose access to over half the market using Android

@NintendoFan64 yeah....totally didn't see it coming.

I hate phone games. I don't understand how people get into all of these shallow, 3 second distractions.

I think people need to realise that there might be a difference between "core target group" and the people who bought the WiiU. I for one hope Nintendo has a larger core target group than the install base for the U...

Player's definition of "core audience": players who care the most about Nintendo's games.

Analyst's definition of "core audience": people who Nintendo cares the most about selling their games to.

@PlywoodStick Thanks! I don't follow mobile gaming, but it seems there is as much uncertainty in mobile as there is in console gaming. There's never a sure thing, but it seemed for a while - based on 100s of millions of smart phones and tablets floating around - that conventional thinking suggested it would be easy money. But, just like most people probably don't buy a playstation to check their e-mail; most people probably aren't buying an ithing to play video games. I've had an iPhone for 5 years and I haven't opened the App Store in about 5 years.

Jesus lads, use your bit of cop on, he's talking about the 90million people who do NOT own/did not buy a WiiU. They would buy MK on Android or iPhone in a heart beat for like $5.

A mobile version of a console Mario Kart, sure. A mobile-exclusive Mario Kart? Hell no; they would be alienating their real "core audience" (they are absolutely not on mobile — that's their target audience, not core) that stood by them through thick and thin.

I'm not a big mobile/tablet game player but Nintendo will bring out quality unique titles for the mobile gaming market that will do really well.

I sometimes play hearthstone on my phone..

NO WE DO NOT! I do not want Mario Kart on my phone because my phone has no buttons! I want Mario Kart on 3DS, which I still play whenever I get new Street-Pass GPs to play against, and having physical controls is key. So if Nintendo makes another portable system, or somehow it's all the same, GREAT, but yawn at mobile stuff.

With their cancerous business practices of free-to-play and pay-to-win? Of course they will do well. Let the money rain.

Nintendont pls... Just no. Ill play mk mobile... On my new 3ds X like which is severely lacking an updated MK game

Mario Kart on mobile could actually work very well. It will be a different game, but it will work the right market.

These people who expect console-like Nintendo games to appear on mobile can just bugger off.

Depends on how you want to define "core." If it's "hardcore," obviously that's not the case. If it's "the core of their profits," the answer is pretty obvious given how the 3DS and Wii U compare to their predecessors.

That said, mobile gaming isn't inherently bad. If Nintendo goes in with great games and respect for their customers, they can probably clean house in the mobile market, since the majority of mobile developers struggle with either getting attention (Nintendo won't have a problem there), or are in a race to the bottom with horrible free-to-play mechanics and cheap production values.

If Nintendo makes good games that are priced right, they could do really well in the mobile market and maybe even help redeem the bad name it has largely earned in the past few years. If anything, Nintendo waiting as long as they did, and coming in with genuinely quality titles, could prove to be a great move in the end as I imagine many mobile customers are sick of being taken advantage of by exploitative games in the mobile arena, and releasing a game on Android and iOS means reaching an incredibly large market.

If "everybody wants Mario Kart on their mobile", maybe they should ask their mommy and daddy pretty please if they can get a 3DS for Christmas

It's funny because all of the hand held Mario Kart games are so inferior to console versions that I honestly can't even stand to play them. I can only imagine how terrible a mobile version would be.

I agree that Nintendo needs something something more on the mobile market, but Mario Kart is not it.

No. The Wii audience is on mobile. Core audience is playing WiiU.

No, I don't want MK on my mobile. I don't want Fantasy Life on my mobile. I want immersive, beautiful games that are lovingly made and have a story to tell. You can't get that on mobile. And even if you could, the battery life would put paid to the "immersive" part of that description in about 20 minutes.

If this "analyst" had ever played MK, or any immersive game, on any console, he would know you couldn't get an Angry Birds type audience response to it on mobile. It just wouldn't play well enough. (Plus the fact that AB was free - the money Rovio made and still makes from those games is almost entirely from the advertising). So he obviously knows sweet FA about gaming, gamers or Nintendo's "core audience" and is making stuff up to suit his preconceptions. Analysis of this kind has obviously gone the way of investigative journalism.

I'm nobody! Analyst said so!
Seriously though, no matter how many times I try I simply can't get behind an all touch gaming device. I need physical buttons to press. Mobile gaming is good for quick throw away gaming with a simple setup but that's about it. Nintendo would be wise to not listen to these idiots who think mobile should be the focus. Keep making real games Nintendo.

I have not spent a cent on mobile games, I'm not expecting to in the near future.

@NintendoFan64
Precisely that picture.

Nintendo's core audience is not phone gamers.
Only an idiot who knows nothing about Nintendo and thinks a slap-dash console game on phones would be an instant seller, would say otherwise.

You can't just plop a big brand like MK onto phones and call it good; phone gamers don't spend the kind of time that a typical Mario Kart gamer would on games like that. They'd be left in the dust in no time just trying to get a grip on the controls and tracks, especially on a day outside where you're walking around and your attention is divided.

No, phone games aren't going to be Nintendo's main audience any year soon.
They'll be a nice profit source for games like Pokemon Go and Miitomo, but Nintendo will never look to phones as their main source of profits.
Analysts need to put away their crystal balls and shut their flapping lips.XD

@Dankykong Nah, not even the Wii audience is on mobile, these days.
The Wii audience would sit down for a while and play something for a long longer than the average phone gamer's Angry Birds session, even with games as casual as Wii Sports.XD

Plus, can you imagine the extra data charges that phone gamers would have to put up with if they played a Nintendo game on their phone that required online to get any sort of replay value out of it, like Mario Kart likely would?

And that's not even mentioning battery drain.

Yeah, phone gamers aren't going to be Nintendo's audience any year soon, and Wii gamers have either moved on to something less intense [like puzzle games on phones], upgraded to a different system, or stopped gaming altogether.

I don't want to play MK on a tablet. But my 8 year old nephew is always playing need for speed or asphalt or something on a tablet everytime I see him. I'm sure he would love MK on a tablet. Just because I'm not a huge fan of tablets doesn't make me blind to see MK on a tablet could have a huge market.

I think (hope) that Nintendo's move into mobile is less about selling mobile games, and more about advertising its IP and console games. Miitomo and Pokemon GO seem to me to be a good step in that direction actually - for all the hate Miitomo got on here, we are not its intended audience. Its intended audience is young smartphone (smartphone=disposable income) owners yet to discover the delights of console gaming. Get 'em hooked into Nintendo IP and you have a new generation of Nintendo console owners. Maybe.

On the other hand, it's entirely possible that Zelda U will come out in 2018 as an iOS exclusive. In which case I will regretfully wash my hands of Nintendo, because if they do that they will not be the company I know and love (and am often bemused by) anymore.

@PlywoodStick Yeah, I know... It seemed like the reply button just didn't work, so I clicked it a bunch of times, and it posted my message multiple times. Then the delete button didn't work for some reason. But now it's all okay - thanks to the nice admins here.

I hate mobile gaming. A lot.

I would hate to play Mario Kart on a mobile device.

Must be swell to be paid to make predictions, eh serkan? >_>

I buy the most powerful flagship smart phones on the market every year, and I by the time I get home from work the battery is pretty much dead. At that point I pick up my 3DS, and leave all those twitter and whatsapp alert alone.

Please keep these things separate. I do not want an incoming Skype call when I'm about to strike Ganondorf with a light arrow.

Nintendo's core audience is on Wii U and 3DS. The problem is, that core audience isn't big enough to allow for profit and revenue to grow. That is why Nintendo decided to start developing for mobile.

"...everybody wants Mario Kart on their mobile, if they released that, they would make billions."

Yeah...no. A Mario Kart spin-off built to be played on a mobile device would do fine on mobile, but a mainline AAA Mario Kart?? No chance, especially given how much the game relies on physical controls. Touch controls aren't accurate enough, and gyro phone/tablet controls will involve tilting around the screen too much.

My biggest complain about smartphones is that its difficult to play Nintendo games on it, because the touch interface is not designed for Nintys type of game. Unless they do something like the Xperia play, but dunno.

@NESlover85 because that's exactly what they are for, to play them in short burst since you have them along you.

@smashbrolink Obviously the guy in the article didn't think about that LOL Battery drain and data charges. The illogical bashing of Nintendo when people see 1 race is 10mb of data without wifi Omg

I like the idea of apps like Miitomo and Pokemon Go on smart phones. I have no problem with smartphone games as long as they are fit to that platform, like puzzle games and smaller time killers for bus rides and smoke breaks. I even have a couple of light RPG's that I play when I got a minute.

But nobody is asking for Mario Kart on mobile. We are perfectly fine playing a racing game with traditional buttons, thanks. Let Nintendo do what it has been doing. Every app they have revealed to be working on thus far fits well in the mobile space, and I am looking forward to playing them.

While the money is in the mobiles with the casual gamers and you can make the mobile gamers pay with transactions, it's just very un-Nintendo. The idea would never need to happen if you played your cards right in the first place.
I'm saying this once, Ninten'don't'.

Screw mobile, Mario Kart will never work on it. I play Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transform on mobile and the game just doesn't feel the same as the 3DS and console versions.

As long as there is a product differentiation between mobile and console, I am all for it. A Mario Kart Mobile with 4 tracks and 8 characters would be wise. Have a limited amount of characters and tracks so people can get a taste for it. Those maps can be online, too. People who just want that limited approach will still pay $10-15 for a marquee name like that. Same for Smash. It could be 4-6 stages with 10 characters. As long as the home console version has over 30+ tracks and 30+ characters (and DLC), there will always be a home for the diehard fans who want the full package and will pay for it. But having those marquee games on mobile has to be done in a more limited capacity. Mario Kart on mobile would make them 10s of millions of dollars.

Core gaming transforms into a niche market.

The casual mobile gamer is the new mass market, and mass market is the new Core gamers.

Mario Kart on a mobile phone with horrible touchscreen controls are the future!
Of course mobile gamers are core gamers. Playing racing games via touch controls is brutal enough.

Pretty sure these mobile phone users don't even consider themselves gamers so I fail to see how they could be the core audience for Nintendo.

Lately I've been playing a Steven Universe RPG on my tablet, because I love the show so much, I noticed that the story is written by the same people, and a review said it had paper-mario style fight mechanics. It's pretty cool, though fairly barebones compared to a proper console RPG. There's nothing about it being played on a tablet that detracts from the central experience compared to what it would be on 3ds or Wii U.

I've also been playing the snowboarding llama-collecting game, which is absolutely beautiful.

Sure, tablets and phones have a disadvantage due to lack of physical buttons and sloppy capacitive touchscreen, but there's nothing about mobile gaming that makes it automatically bad all the time...

-_- The Core Audience all wants mobile games? What a joke! Mobile games by and large are terrible. I mean simple, arcade style games work fine but anything more complex then that is full of suckitude and this analyst is full of bull.

Nintendo's core audience is everywhere. Nintendo's core audience freaking LOVES video games, so they're everywhere that games are available.

Nintendo's had a bit of trouble with being "available" the past few years though, at least compared to so many other platforms.

Certainly Nintendo fans will enjoy their content coming to mobile units, but that's the thing. It won't. It'll be new content, specifically designed for drawing people in to Nintendo's native hardware environment, as they have said over and over and over.

That analyst has some flawed numbers.