Nintendo has finally disclosed details on the first of their long-awaited projects for mobile devices, in a briefing held early Thursday morning in Japan.
Miitomo, a free-to-play virtual life simulator will be the first of five titles that Nintendo plans to release for smartphones through March of 2017, as part of their relationship with DeNA that was announced earlier this year.
In Miitomo, players will be able to create their virtual Mii avatars, which will then be able to interact with other Mii’s in a virtual world, even when the player is not actively participating. Miitomo will be free, however there will be “attractive add-on’s” which players will of course, have to purchase. The other four as of yet unannounced mobile titles will not be offered for free, Nintendo said.
In addition to Miitomo, Nintendo also announced a new service called “Nintendo Account”, which will act as the replacement for Club Nintendo, which the company shut down earlier this year. Nintendo Account will act as a unifying bridge, keeping players connected to all things Nintendo through console, mobile devices, and PC. A cloud data storage service will allow gamers to store and transfer game data between mobile and console devices.
Nintendo’s new CEO Tatsumi Kimishimi also discussed some financial aspects of the company’s past few months, highlighting the impact that 2015 titles Splatoon and Super Mario Maker have had on still sluggish Wii U sales, the latter of which selling one million copies in a three week period. Kimishimi dropped an intriguing tidbit regarding the remaining 2015 holiday Wii U and Nintendo 3DS lineup, telling attendees that there were three, as-of-yet unannounced titles that would be released before year’s end. No hints as to what those games may be were dropped, however there has been a fair amount of speculation that we may be seeing an HD remaster of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princes, which first appeared as a launch game for the Wii in 2006.
image courtesy of Nintendo Everyting
Nintendo did not do was use the event to discuss their upcoming NX console, however industry legend, and Nintendo executive Shigeru Miyamoto did offer a brief insight into Nintendo’s strategy regarding the device:
“We are going to be more aggressive in using our IP, and not just stop with licensing, as in the past. We want our IP to reach more children, and smart devices are just one more vehicle.”
Nintendo is expected to release more information on their mobile plans for American audiences, and further holiday release plans, in the near future; most likely through a Nintendo Direct presentation, which the company said they planned to revive before the end of 2015.
source: Wall Street Journal
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