You know what would be cool? If Nintendo released its old games on smartphones. Instead, Nintendo has another plan: Releasing more smartphone games on the 3DS. Oh.
In a recent interview with the Nikkei, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata revealed that Nintendo will be remaking more smartphone games on the Nintendo 3DS. Iwata added that the company will also be remaking old Nintendo games for the handheld. The games will be low-priced, going for a few hundred yen (a couple of bucks).
That’s right, instead of remaking old Nintendo games for smartphones, which anyone with a smartphone and a brain would love, Nintendo is releasing revamped and remade titles on the 3DS.
Last year, Nintendo revealed it would start releasing content on smartphones, but so far, that has not turned out to be Nintendo smartphone games. Rather, it seems more geared for promotional content.
Earlier this year, however, Nintendo announced it would be bringing smartphone game Puzzle & Dragons to the 3DS with Mario. Expect more of that, I guess.
I would pay good money for legit Nintendo games on my smartphone — if anything, simply to encourage Nintendo to enter the 21st century.
Sigh.
I get that Nintendo makes games for Nintendo hardware. I get it! I also get that some of these smartphone tie-ups could be big money-makers. But there are old games that people are already playing with emulators on smartphones anyway. So why not give these games a proper (and official) release?
Because, Nintendo. That’s why.
Comments
48 responses to “Nintendo Is So Annoying About Smartphones”
People that could even suggest such things do not understand Nintendo at all.
Not to mention it would control horribly. Why put out your classics and have them be unplayable?
Kotaku continuing the course of not understanding Nintendo.
It’s the other way round, and it’s Nintendo not understanding their audience in the 21st century.
No.
Nintendo only release their games on their own platforms. This has been so for many years. Almost every case where there has been an exception is one that they regretted later.
If they changed this policy, they would probably go the way of Sega and become a software-only company, since the primary motivation for buying Nintendo consoles is the first-party games.
This is less so for mobile, but given that mobile games sales are now the main competitor for the 3DS I can’t see them changing that any time soon.
“Give the customers what they want” is not always the best strategy, when doing so loses your company a key advantage. If Nintendo ever leave the hardware business, then we may see their games on mobile and other third-party platforms.
I’m not really much of a Nintendo fan, but I can see why they take this approach. It’s the same basic reason as why Microsoft stick to Windows for almost all of their application development.
Clueless article
I’m certainly not going to buy another handheld device purely to play Nintendo games. But as an old school Nintendo kid who owns an iPhone, I could be worth a LOT of money to Nintendo. I guess my dollars will stay holstered for now.
There are two core elements to Nintendo’s thinking, control and quality. Putting games on smartphones means they don’t control the specs of the hardware and therefore can’t guarantee the quality of the games.
Additionally paying 30% to apple for putting in their market probably seems nonsensical when instead they could build custom hardware and make a profit on each unit sold. Outdated thinking? Maybe, but it’s worked for a long time and you don’t abandon a ship at the first leak you confirm it’s sinking first.
Controlling hardware specs has nothing to do with game quality; that would suggest that third-party developers cannot make good games.
Perhaps i should have said performance. People with older phones or phones laden with many background apps will not run games as well as newer phones which creates a fragmented user base leading to inconsistent gameplay experiences.
You could apply that argument to PC gaming.
Except that PC gamers are a very different breed to Smartphone gamers, and you can’t just chuck a newer graphics card in your phone to boost performance.
Only to a degree. I cant use the 700+ series with my motherboard now, theyre not compatible any more. Have to upgrade everything now *sigh*
No, you usually can’t upgrade the hardware of a phone. You can, however, upgrade to a brand new one for almost nothing upfront every two years.
Indeed. Nintendo does not make PC games, either.
It has everything to do with quality. Nintendo can’t release a game on a platform and be confident it will run how it should.
Your argument that would also mean 3rd party developers cannot make good games is flawed. 3rd party Nintendo developers do have ‘control over the hardware’ in as much as they know if it runs perfectly on their unit, it will run the same way on all the units out there in the market. It is a fixed target and they can exploit that the same way Nintendo can.
Yes, if it runs on one Wiiu, it’ll run on all of them. That’s a major benefit of consoles. However, Apple products are very similar to consoles; locked hardware, closed ecosystems. Compatibility isn’t much of an issue; if a game runs on an iPhone 4, you know it’ll run on a 4S, 5, 5S and 6.
I would’ve believed that quality thing pre-Wii. The amount of shovelware on that thing was ludicrous.
It really made a mockery of the ‘seal of quality’
True, but we are talking handhelds, and most of the shovelware was 3rd party. Nintendo have been leading the way this generation for quality software releases.
Each title they have brought out has been polished and didn’t require multi-gigabyte day1 downloads just to run, or constant patching. They haven’t been pushing crap out the door, it has been a steady release of crackingly good titles. I think they learned from the Wii shovelware problem, and don’t wish to return to that.
Who said anything about abandoning ship? They could still produce handhelds, as there is already a proven market, but there is two massive untapped markets with devices easily powerful enough to run emulators and roms of old gameboy to ds games without too much hassle. Already in customers hands.
I had an NES emulater on my first android phone years ago – the controls were shit! Now if Nintebdo wanted to bring a browser based (therefore DRM controlled) virtual console to PCs with a Netflix like subscription I would jump!
Yeah this – I put a GBA emu on my note 4 – great for final fantasy, not so good for Mario or anything requiring some sort of precision.
With a controller attachment it would be fine…
Don’t forget about their paid smartphone pokedex app that only gives you the 1st 151 and then makes you pay 15 dollars for each region.
Why do people only demand Nintendo to sell their games on other platforms?
Where are the people Demanding Halo for Playstation? Where are the XBox users screaming for Sony titles?
At the end of the day people well versed in Business make these decisions and a bunch of gamers with no real world experience in the field aren’t going to convince them.
Seriously your going to spend what $20 on NES games for your Smartphone? Nintendo would prefer to sell you a 3DS and the games for the same price you’d buy with your smartphone.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I don’t know about you guys but I use my phone to call people and I use my nintendo 3DS to play nintendo games.
Nintendo is a hardware company along with software. They want you to purchase their hardware to play their software, they don’t want you to buy apple hardware to play their software.
DKnight got it right.
I wonder if they have the intention some time in the future to put LTE functionality into the 3DS (or nextgen of same)?