Japanese business newspaper Nikkei published a report yesterday suggesting that Nintendo is working on a smartphone app as part of an effort to market its games to users outside of its ecosystem. The report also claimed that the company is working on ‘mini games’ in the same light.
But according to Nintendo, that’s not true—at least the last half of it. In an official statement today, the game-maker debunked the Nikkei article, stating that it doesn’t have any plans to offer ‘mini’ or ‘demo’ games on smartphone and tablet platforms, at any point in the immediate future…
Here’s Engadget with the statement:
“Nikkei’s article contains information previously stated by Mr Iwata during past press conferences, including statements which relate to Nintendo’s willingness to make use of smart devices to promote our products.
However during such past announcements Mr Iwata has also stated that Nintendo’s intention is not to make Nintendo software available on smart devices and as such, we can confirm that there are no plans to offer minigames on smartphone devices.”
Nintendo is at a critical time in its career. It’s expecting to report a $240 million loss for its fiscal 2013, which would be the company’s second reported annual loss in a row, due to extremely poor Wii U and game sales. And a lot of pundits feel that it should look to mobile devices for help.
But it sounds like, at least for now, Nintendo isn’t budging on its ‘no smartphone/tablet games’ policy, and is instead concentrating on its next console. We believe, though, that the company is still intent on releasing a mobile app for marketing purposes, which we could see as early as Thursday.
Thoughts?