The jailbreak community has worked to get Mario onto the iPhone for years.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Nintendo has finally decided that it is time to start making mobile games for platforms like the iPhone. The company has confirmed it will begin developing titles for smartphones and other mobile devices (presumably, ‘tablets’) featuring famous franchises like Mario.
Until now, Nintendo has been resistant to share its first-party intellectual property (‘IP’) outside of its own consoles. Clearly, it was worried that bringing characters like Mario to the iPhone would cannabilize sales of its own hardware like the Nintendo DS. However, as part of a new partnership with a mobile gaming company, there has clearly been a change of heart by Nintendo executives.
According to the report, Nintendo wants to create a gaming membership service that would span smartphone, and traditional games consoles. It’s unclear how this would work on Apple’s platforms in conjunction with the App Store rules on In-App Purchases. The games would be ‘new experiences’, not simply ports of existing Wii U and DS titles.
Nintendo says it is still working on its own first-party console hardware, but is now committed to providing great mobile gaming experiences as well. Although the public is unlikely to see any fruits of this new direction for many months, it will no doubt excite Nintendo fans about the possibilities of getting full titles on their favorite devices, the iPhone and iPad.
The Pokemon Company has already dabbled with iPad games, so fingers crossed for a full Pokemon game coming to iOS soon as well.
The change of heart is rather amusing for the struggling games company, which has been losing out to Microsoft and Sony in the console space and Apple for general mobile device dominance. Satoru Iwata, Nintendo president, has historically said that Nintendo would never make mobile games as long as he in charge, despite investor pressure.
Consumers generally still seem to enjoy the Nintendo franchises, myself included, so maybe Nintendo can make a comeback as a games developer for iOS. And although Nintendo has said it is developing new console hardware, codenamed ‘NX’, it is likely to continue to struggle in that space against the likes of Apple … especially when the Apple TV with integrated games store debuts.
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can’t wait already…
FINALLY!
Nintendo should name there next console NiX in honor of their idiot President. He should get sacked for not doing this sooner.
Nintendo is struggling? I don’t consider it struggling when company can take a $125M loss every year until 2055 and STILL have money in the bank.
Shareholders do.
Nintendo is bleeding!
I think this may be too little too late to save them.
I believe they will be acquired by Disney in a few years.
The money argument is always hilarious.
It doesn’t matter how much money they continue to lose sales and public perception. Nintendo has shareholders, and shareholders will get pissed quicker than Nintendo could ever lose money. Nintendo properties on iOS is the first sign of that.
I really hope it isn’t some stupid Mario Match game or some match 3 free-to-play game. I hope it’s a premium classic Mario game.
Yeah but knowing how stupid they are, it probably will be.
A classic Mario game cost 49.99. If you want a FULL experience of classic Nintendo games. You need pay much more than 0.99/4.99 on App Store. Millions of players have already paid 49.99 for it. So lower the price isn’t reasonable for Nintendo. And make a game 49.99 on App Store is a stupid action too. So probably the only way out is “match 3” style games.
Worked for ScribbleNauts, Grand Theft Auto, Sonic, Crazy Taxi, KOTOR, Baulder’s Gate……should I go on?
All the Final Fantasy and DragonQuest games are $15+ and do great.
I like to imagine this story is from 10 years ago, back when it should have happened.
They better make a Bluetooth joystick. My childhood memories are mostly based on Nintendo sadly, I will buy all their games.
As I said a long time ago, not developing games for iOS and Android was an epic fail for Nintendo. They only needed to create a few classic Mario games that were pay for (no in App Purchases) and they would’ve made an absolute fortune. If you read this Nintendo, do not go the In App Purchases route, go once off price for a quality game. I will buy them all for my kids…. And I’ll buy and play them too!
Pokemon X/Y is 39.99 and have sales more than 10M copies. Will a App Store user pay that much for a app even its quality is as high as Pokemon X/Y? Remember, Nintendo can literally do NOTHING and still alive until 2050. A 9.99 Mario/Pokemon is just ruining their high value IP.
Yes, I want to play Pokemon on my iPhone. The idea is awesome. But I think a 39.99 app in App Store doesn’t make any sense and we can’t find any price lower than that to match the game’s quality.