Nintendo reportedly working on smartphone app to market its games

nintendo

Last month, comments made by Nintendo of America’s Reginald Fils-Aime during an interview suggested that the company is finally warming up to the idea of producing content for mobile devices. Nintendo is currently the only console-maker that doesn’t have an iOS or Android presence.

Fils-Aime said that the gaming giant has been working on “little experiences” for the smartphone, but he didn’t get into any details. Japanese business newspaper Nikkei looks to fill in the blanks though, with a new report claiming Nintendo is working on an app to market its console titles…

Dr. Serkan Toto passes along the report from Nikkei:

“Japanese newspaper The Nikkei just reported on its website (2am Tuesday JST) that Nintendo is finally going mobile within this year. According to the country’s biggest business publication, Nintendo will make such an announcement this Thursday, the day it holds a briefing for investors.

But Nintendo will not simply put Mario, Pokemon or other games on smartphones. According to the report, Nintendo plans to use Android and/or iOS devices (not confirmed at this point) to market its console games. To be more concrete, The Nikkei writes that Nintendo wants to use smartphones to expand its potential user base by spreading information about new game releases, i.e. by using video to introduce future titles. (This will probably happen through some kind of official Nintendo app.)”

Furthermore, Nikkei says that Nintendo is also working on ‘mini games’ for smartphones. These would be playable demos of console games–content that can only be purchased in full on Nintendo hardware—with the goal of giving smartphone players a taste of the experience and luring them in.

Nintendo Mario iPhone 5

The publication rounds out its report by saying that all of this content will be free, and the company is not planning to offer paid or freemium games on smartphones or tablets at the moment—something pundits have long suggested it do in order to offset the money it’s losing on hardware sales.

Nintendo has said that it’s expecting to sell nearly 70% less Wii U units than it forecasted for the year, which ends in March, and it plans to report a net loss of $240 million versus the anticipated $527 million in annual profits. It’ll be the second year in a row that the company has reported a loss.

It’s believed that Nintendo will make an announcement regarding its future plans for mobile this Thursday.