Following Nintendo’s plans, or lack of plans, or speculated plans, seems to have the games media on edge for the better part of the last month (or more). It all started with them talking about “experimenting" with smartphones then announcing some pretty dismal financial news which got into some pretty nebulous territory in regards to Nintendo looking to leverage the new ways people are playing games on their smartphones to bring them back to the Nintendo hardware ecosystem.
Then, some firmer news came out of Big N that they were thinking of releasing “mini games" as part of their tablet and smartphone strategy. It made sense, as giving folks a taste of the latest and greatest Nintendo games on the device they’ve already got in their pocket could be a pretty good way to get them to go grab the full version of the game on the 3DS, or Wii U, or whatever.
Well, Engadget got a statement from Nintendo, finally putting the whole thing to rest:
“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."
Just when this story couldn’t get any weirder, Nintendo totally shuts down the potential of mini games on smartphones and tablets. What they are going to release is still up for debate, as if it’s not going to be anything that resembles a game, that still leaves the potential open for PokeDex-style companion apps, which we’ve often speculated on our podcast.
With or without minigames, it doesn’t change the fact that Nintendo isn’t doing so great these days. They’re going to have to do something, and I’m not sure there’s a single person on the internet who doesn’t have a strong opinion on what Nintendo should be doing right now.
[via MacRumors]
