Over seven years after originally partnering with DeNA to make mobile games based on Nintendo IP, Nintendo and DeNA have established a joint venture subsidiary titled Nintendo Systems. Nintendo and DeNA will use this to strengthen the digitalization of Nintendo’s business and create value-added services to reinforce Nintendo’s relationship with customers. Times have definitely changed since people freaked out over Nintendo being at an Apple event to showcase Super Mario Run back in 2016.
What makes this announcement more interesting is that Nintendo hasn’t really announced or released anything on mobile barring Pikmin Bloom in a while. Dragalia Lost, one of Nintendo’s more interesting mobile games, is shutting down soon while the more popular Fire Emblem Heroes and Mario Kart Tour continue trucking on. I still hope Nintendo does something with the Zelda franchise on mobile. Resurrecting Tri Force Heroes in some ways on mobile would be nice to have since it had a lot of potential on 3DS but was held back by some annoying design decisions. Either way, I’m interested to see where this new subsidiary takes Nintendo’s presence outside of its Switch system. What do you think of today’s announcement?
