Nintendo will be making mobile games in the future, but we don’t know much about its plans yet. TIME spoke with Satoru Iwata, Reggie Files-Aime and Shigeru Miyamoto for a tiny bit of insight into their plans.
Here are a couple of interesting quotes, but I’d recommend reading the whole piece!
On whether Nintendo will embrace free-to-play and in-game purchases:
Mobile games will present a new set of challenges for the company. Many of that market’s biggest hits are initially free to download but generate enormous sales by constantly prompting users to pay small amounts for in-game items. Iwata says this doesn’t track with Nintendo’s identity. “Nintendo does not intend to choose payment methods that may hurt Nintendo’s brand image or our intellectual property,” he says. That doesn’t mean so-called micro-transactions are entirely out of the question, however. The company will decide which payment system to employ depending on the title, Iwata says. He adds: “It’s even more important for us to consider how we can get as many people around the world as possible to play Nintendo smart device apps, rather than to consider which payment system will earn the most money.”
On whether there are differences in designing games for mobile or dedicated gaming hardware:
That leaves Nintendo rethinking its approach to the very industry it helped define. “I have never intended to dismiss the entertainment experiences that people are enjoying on smart devices or any other media,” Iwata says. “On the other hand, my understanding is that, on smart devices, the main demand is for very accessible games which smart device users can easily start and easily finish. These are not necessarily the characteristics that people demand from games for dedicated video game systems.”
Comments
8 responses to “Nintendo’s Plans For Future Mobile Games”
You’ve gotta love Nintendo.
– Dont want pricing systems that hurt their brand.
– We just want as many people around the world to be playing Nintendo games.
Nintendo is always a refreshing change from the state of modern gaming. Pay-wall upon pay-wall upon pay-wall.
Yep, Nintendo have been great with this soft of thing. A lot of their DLC has been priced really, really well and I’ve never regretted buying any of it. It helps that they offer a bundle for all the packs for a great discount.
I haven’t even finished Hyrule Warriors but as soon as I saw the DLC I had to buy it. Gotta support good DLC implementation if we want it to stick around.
Oh dear. Hyrule Warriors. Each DLC pack probably adds so much. My wife keeps asking me “when are you going to stop playing that game?”.
It remains to be seen how they go about it. Those two objectives seem a bit contradictory to me – if you look at what the most popular mobile games are, it tends to be a lot of free-to-play-with-microtransactions-up-the-wazoo games. So if they want as many people as possible playing their games, it seems like that would be the model to go with. But that would mean embracing a pricing system that will hurt their brand.
Nintendo have already dabbled in this themselves on 3DS with Pokemon Shuffle, so it’s not like they have some deep-seated philosophical objection to it which cannot be overcome.
Not all free to play games are really shitty about it though. Look at a few popular examples, Temple Run – you can buy extras but can enjoy the full game. Jetpack joyride is pretty similar, you can buy coins and stuff to get aheard and there are a few exclusive paid items but they are cosmetic as far as I can tell.
Clash of Clans also had a lot of micro transactions built in but you can play without paying a cent. I’ve actually thought about buying the lowest tier from time to time. Knowing that I know now, I probably would have when I first started for that extra help at the beginning.
I love Nintendo. Thats all.
Agreed.