Nintendo, it’s a name that goes synonymous with the classic gaming among the hard-core gamers. However, on the other hand, it’s a name that stands for stubborn, slow-poke strategy which catches the market swings too late. After years of ‘Yes and No’ game, Nintendo had recently announced it’s plans to create mobile games for Android and iOS platforms.The partnership with mobile games company DeNA was warmly welcomed by the fans and shareholders alike. So, what’s in it for the Android users?
If you were under the rock for a long time, Nintendo is one of the most popular game makers with a huge collection of Intellectual Property. Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon are some of the company’s recognized gaming brands which still holds the charm. Nintendo released most of its games for its specialized gaming hardware like the Wii and Nintendo DS and was reluctant to enter the mobile market until now. However, the Nintendo President Satoru Iwata says that the mobile expansion wouldn’t consume their gaming consoles.
Android smartphones have been evolving rapidly from the past couple of years and the hunger for powerful hardware is still growing. This year, we’ve already seen the 64-bit processor support, Asus launching a 4 GB memory device, high resolution displays and much more on the hardware front which clearly shows that the Android smartphones are on the verge of replacing computers.
Most of the Android smartphones in the market can handle graphic intense games which is attracting a lot of gaming companies to invest their time and money in the mobile gaming. Moreover, with Android TV now supporting smartphones as game controllers, it would be cool to play Nintendo games using gyro sensors on our smart devices.
Nintendo has finally realized the potential of mobile market and stepped into the mobile gaming with the partnership of DeNA. If the cards go in favour, Nintendo could use its IP to dominate the Google Play Store with its super awesome games. However, there is an interesting question with the partnership of Nintendo and DeNA which raised a lot of buzz among the enthusiasts. Nintendo is a branded premium gaming company which produces high quality games which are sold along with their gaming consoles but according to the Play Store stats, premium games doesn’t get as much popularity as the free games.
On the other hand, DeNA, a company which primarily publishes free-to-play mobile games has partnered with Nintendo. So, we are expecting some free-to-play Nintendo games soon in the Play Store but we are also expecting a catch. If Nintendo is to launch free games in the Play Store, it would surely integrate in-app purchase system like many other popular games. For instance, the popular Candy Crush developer King has bagged over $1.8 billion last year with this strategy. But the question at hand is, will the fun-to-play Nintendo games like the Mario Kart be equally addictive to attract a lot of crowd?
Apart from the popular Nintendo games, we’re also expecting retro casino games like the European Roulette, Vegas party and few other games which might feature in the Nintendo franchise along with Mario, Pokemon. There are many third party emulators for Android which would run Nintendo console games on smartphones but the experience was as sluggish as expected. So, we expect Nintendo and DeNA would work together to optimize the games for smartphone specific hardware.
If you see an official Mario or Pokemon game on Play Store, you’d definitely want to download it but if it’s priced high or includes ridiculous in-app purchases, you’ll take one step back. So, Nintendo might become a big player in Android market if it could manage it’s monetization strategy neutral rather than being greedy which would repel the users.
However may it go for Nintendo, Android fans are in for a real treat with Mario, Pokemon and other Nintendo games that are getting ready to dance on their devices. So, what’s Nintendo gonna be, a conqueror or follower?
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