Written by AndrewH

Breaking news is coming from Tokyo this morning as Nintendo has announced that the company has teamed up with DeNA to create games to smartphones and tablets. In addition, the agreement is also to build a new multi-membership service accessible worldwide.

This may come as an entire surprise since Nintendo has for some time adamantly refused to consider bringing their games to mobile. However that seemed to be changing recently as Nintendo began teasing an official Mii application for Android and iOS. Of course that application continues to be teased for nearly a year except recently it actually appears to be an actual thing finally. Now prior to getting all excited to determine Super Mario Bros natively on your Android device, here are the facts to the agreement.

This agreement between DeNA and Nintendo is a “business and capital alliance to develop and operate new game apps for smart devices and build a new multi-device membership service for consumers worldwide”. The wording about this is extremely interesting since they’re calling it ‘game apps’ that is a term used often in Asia to describe games on mobile, but can also be employed to explain companion apps like the Mii application being teased already. So at any time Nintendo can alter it up and simply release companion apps and not games at all. Secondly, this doesn’t suggest their existing catalog of titles is going to be ported over. These games might be completely new IPs, and more than likely many of them is going to be, or spin-off of existing franchises.

However there is great news. Further in to the announcement it is known that releases will be both new IPs as well as releases based off of existing IPs, including “iconic game characters”. Ports won’t be happening though of existing games. Everything released is going to be new games built from the floor as much as ensure quality. So pricier your preferred Wii U or Nintendo 3DS games to be ported over but there’s a good chance you will notice new games based off of your favorite franchises from those platforms.

Interestingly enough, to ensure a good partnership forwards and backwards companies, Nintendo has acquired 5,081,000 of DeNA’s treasury shares, that is roughly 10% from the company. The price? 22 billion Yen. DeNA acquire 1,759,400 of Nintendo’s treasury shares, which translates into roughly 1.24% from the company. The cost? 22 billion Yen. Quite simply, both companies are in possession of a stake in each other that cost them nothing.

Unfortunately there is no word on whenever we can start seeing games hitting Google Play nor exactly what the first titles to be sold is going to be. We’ll obviously be keeping a close eye on this and can report on any new details we find out. We’ve contacted both companies for further information. Full pr release below for your read pleasure.

So what do you think about this? Let us know in the comments below!

Nintendo and DeNA Form Business and Capital Alliance

Companies to develop new game apps featuring Nintendo IP for smart devices and a new multi-device membership service

TOKYO, JAPAN