Nintendo's Shift In Their Mobile Approach

Originally Published February 9th, 2019

It’s been almost 4 years since Nintendo first started game development in the mobile scene, and initially, the company’s mobile presence was meant to be very supplemental. Nintendo’s mobile games, at least when Satoru Iwata was president of the company, were meant to promote the sales of Nintendo consoles and the full experience of the games only available on those consoles. However, with the release of Dragalia Lost, a completely mobile-exclusive Nintendo intellectual property, has the gaming giant’s view of the mobile marketplace shifted? Well, to find out we have to look back, back to March of 2015, when Nintendo first partnered with Japanese mobile developer DeNA.

Back when that deal was made, Nintendo was trying to get out of their slow business period with the Wii U and 3DS. At first, the plan was to make five games with DeNA, and even though that deal has been expanded on since then, we’ve seen those five initial games solidify. Pokemon Go, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem Heroes, Super Mario Run, and Dragalia Lost have released and have been in app stores for a while now, and none of them have really served the original intent of promoting a full experience on a Nintendo console. All of these games are standalone titles that have their own unique and enjoyable playing experience, completely separate from the same IP’s on the Wii U, 3DS, and Switch. I mean, yeah, Miitomo was kind of similar to the 3DS title Tomodachi Life, and Pokemon Shuffle for mobile devices was literally a port of the 3DS title of the same name, but these two applications were miniscule in scale and popularity compared to the other big hits.

If all their biggest games being able to stand by themselves wasn’t enough to persuade you that Nintendo shifted its mobile game focus after Satoru Iwata’s passing, the new president, Tatsumi Kimishida, has also put Nintendo’s mobile goals in the public eye. In an interview with Variety, Kimishida details the two goals of being involved in the mobile market: “First we want to expose Nintendo intellectual properties for more people by using our IP in smart-device applications, and ultimately achieve a synergistic effect without dedicated video game platform business. Second, we want to make the smart-device business one of our pillars of revenue.” He has even gone on to say that Nintendo is open to reaching out to external teams to develop games, as long as it can oversee projects as a whole.

It’s obvious: Nintendo wants their involvement in the mobile space to be an integral part of their company’s brand, and to stand side-by-side with the Switch, contrary to Iwata’s original wishes for the platform. However, something that hasn’t changed from Iwata’s original vision is Nintendo consoles remaining the ideal platform for fans to enjoy first party IP content. Developers for Switch have been knocking it out of the park lately, with Smash Ultimate being a universal success, Breath of the Wild reinventing the Zelda franchise, and Super Mario Odyssey bringing back the sandbox 3-D Mario formula. Although we’ll have to see what they do with Metroid Prime 4, Bayonetta 3, Animal Crossing, and the many other titles awaiting release on Switch, it’s a lot easier to keep the ball rolling after crazy good console sales and game reception.

So yeah, Nintendo’s view of mobile gaming has shifted since it’s introduction four years ago, and both the mobile and console markets are here to stay, albeit separate in Nintendo’s eyes. Unfortunately, that probably won’t mean any console fulfillment for the Dragalia Lost universe being due any time soon, but what IS certain is twice the amount of quality, first-party Nintendo content every year, and there’s nothing wrong with that.