In what can only be described as incredible news, Nintendo and DeNa, a company known for producing mobile titles, have announced that they plan on forming an alliance to create brand new mobile games featuring Nintendo’s own IP. In an statement made shortly, the companies hope that this alliance will benefit both companies in the mobile game space:
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.
To reiterate, these games will not be ports or remakes of existing titles, but entirely new games that will feature Nintendo IP. Nintendo has opened up its entire catalog of IP to DeNa, and the mobile company will have it’s pick of the litter to make games out of, and hopes that the mobile gams will drive consumers to it’s home and portable consoles.
Along with creating games for the house that Mario built, DeNa will also be in charge of creating a brand new membership system for Nintendo users, accessible on PC, 3DS, and the Wii U. Aside from an expected release date of “late 2015”, there’s no news or information on what this program will entail.
In order for this deal to come about, Nintendo and DeNa have agreed to form a “capital alliance”, which boils down to Nintendo acquiring 10% of DeNa’s treasury shares, and DeNa acquiring 1.24% of Nintendo’s:
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.
Without creating too much excitement for this announcement, it’s pretty clear that this is very huge news for Nintendo. They have been trying to come up with a plan to jump into the mobile games space, and it looks like they have finally done so. A curious thing to watch for is how these new mobile games will translate into customers making the transition from Nintendo mobile games to Nintendo consoles.
The announcement of a brand new membership system is also intriguing, as once Club Nintendo has closed, the company was pretty silent on news. Will this new membership service be a jump into the future for Nintendo, and allow them to catch up some ground this generation?
What do you think about this bombshell of a news announcement? Will this hurt Nintendo, or help them? Sound off in the comments.
[Source: Globe News Wire]
