We were all a little taken aback and surprised to hear that Nintendo’s first mobile title would be the curious Miitomo, but who knows? It could be a success. Interestingly, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime says that simply bringing a Mario title over to mobile platforms isn’t a recipe for printing money as many would think. Here’s what Reggie had to say about bringing Mario and other high profile Nintendo IP to mobile devices.
“Unfortunately, there’s a simplistic mentality out there, that ‘Make a Mario game for smart devices’ is a recipe for printing money,” he said. “And it’s not. It just simply is not. It’s that Kyoto craftsmanship mentality that says whatever we’re going to do, it needs to be a wonderful experience for consumers.
“Our strategy is not to port games developed for our dedicated systems to smart devices as they are. We have to develop new software experiences that give people the opportunity to interact with Nintendo IP and that matches the play style and control of smart devices.”
“We know that Mario and his ability to run and jump, to transform based on different items, that’s been optimized for a play-control approach that doesn’t exist for smartphones. And so for us, it’s not simply taking existing games and porting them over to smart devices as the answer. Our answer is to create new compelling experiences that leverage what smart devices do best.”
“We will absolutely continue our traditional maxim of developing software that matches the hardware,” said Fils-Aime. “We have looked at the limitations of software design on mobile platforms, and worked within those parameters. A 3DS game that requires the full manipulation of joysticks and multiple buttons can’t be exactly replicated on a touch-screen mobile device.
“Our strategy is not to port games developed for our dedicated systems to smart devices as they are. We have to develop new software experiences that give people the opportunity to interact with Nintendo IP and that matches the play style and control of smart devices.”
Of course not, Pokemon is.
Pretty sure we already heard about all this in a previous article just recently. It’s all part of the TIME interview that was posted a couple days ago; exact same words, the paragraphs are just in a different order, basically. http://mynintendonews.com/2015/12/11/nintendo-of-america-president-talks-miitomo-mobile-and-more/
Well spotted. That was bloody cheeky recycling editorial
Came here to say it. Come on now, it was not that long ago.
It’s kind of hilarious when they say Mario has a play-control approach that doesn’t exist for smartphones. I imagine that’s due to the lack of buttons on a smart phone…..but looking at their most recent patent for touchscreen/onscreen buttons and how that’s been implemented into smartphone games for the past 6 or 7 years, it just seems like a funny excuse to use. But I guess if they plan on utilizing what they patented, they would want the first experience of that kind of button being on the console rather than on smart devices.
I’d still disagree that Mario isn’t an easy way to churn out cash on smartphones, as many of the free and payed clones have easy shown us, but it’s nice to think that they’d rather put uniqueness over making a simple port. More than anything though, it’s probably because it would be too hard to implement microtransactions into a port, and would be easier to work them into a game from the bottom-up.
Happy to hear that even Nintendo thinks platformers control like shit on smart phones.
I just wish Sega knew that so we could get those amazing 2D Sonic remasters on REAL systems.
So they’re saying that making maybe another New Mario Bros. game (to keep that repetitive series off the main console) for hundreds of millions of mobile around $15-20 isn’t gonna print money but that POS watered down Tomodachi Life/Miiverse garbage at freemium model (a scam model) will as their first mobile title? Like I said, they’ve gone fucking retarded in so many ways.
That would insult the Mario franchise. You can’t just make a New Super Mario Bros game on Mobile and have pay to win in it. That isn’t a good idea.
No. The hell with IAPs. I mean a full, legit game without that BS Microtransactions but maybe have a few clever cheap DLCs like in NSMB2 with Coin Rush mode and another campaign mode expanding level designs and shit that’s not copy/paste from past games. Paying money for power ups in that game is pure bullshit and would more than likely spark a shitton of controversy and complaints of it happened.
Well look at it this way, at lease mario isn’t doing microtransactions. Only that one 3ds game.
What game?
Good, but that doesn’t mean Mario wont come to mobile which still sucks.
He’s absolutely right, and you know how you know? The fact that Nintendo has been staying out of mobile for all these years– and no me-toos have sprung up to fill the gap. New Super Mario Bros. games sell in the millions, so why hasn’t someone made a knockoff, like Crossy Road for Frogger, that fills that niche?
Yes, unlike all the ports you do of previous systems games to the latest platform. C’mon Nintendo… MarioKart for iOS would be an instant money printer.
Whoever made these “pay for DLC and microtransactions” should be found and slapped.