The Wall Street Journal recently had the chance to speak to DeNA President Isao Moriyasu about the company’s relationship with Nintendo and its forthcoming mobile titles. The first of these games is Miitomo which Moriyasu describes as a “game that gives you a certain comfort and nostalgia. The user interface, feel and sound—it’s all very Nintendo.” Moriyasu also says that they are currently considering linking the game with users Facebook friend lists.
WSJ: You’ve described Miitomo as an app that works with Nintendo’s new membership program, called My Nintendo. When was the concept born?
Mr. Moriyasu: Last year. We hadn’t decided on specific names of titles at that point, but we knew we wanted to create a membership service that could connect users across devices, and around five games that could be played on smart devices. And to expand that membership service, we knew we wanted to start by rolling out a game that could be used to communicate with friends.
WSJ: You’ve been testing Miitomo on your smartphone. Can you describe the user experience?
Mr. Moriyasu: There’s that distinct Nintendo feel to the game that gives you a certain comfort and nostalgia. The user interface, feel and sound—it’s all very Nintendo.
WSJ: How is it different from other social networking or messaging services?
Mr. Moriyasu: Miitomo places more emphasis on entertainment. The process of discovering new aspects of your friends via Miis can be quite fun. One distinct aspect of Miitomo is how you can configure your Mii to have it look very similar to yourself. Communicating with friends who actually look like your friends in real life is a distinctly different feeling from text-based communication. We’re thinking of linking the game with users’ Facebook friend lists. I think it could be fun connecting with friends people don’t often communicate with.
WSJ: Are there plans to include games and other services within Miitomo? How do you plan to monetize it?
Mr. Moriyasu: Communication will be central to the game, but I think various elements could be added on— like mini-games users can play with their friends. As for monetizing, there are various possibilities, but at first we plan on selling clothes users can buy for their Miis.
WSJ: How will you be promoting the game?
Mr. Moriyasu: We’re working on that right now, and hope to start early next year.
selling clothes for miis sounds dumb… other than that, it is what I thought it would be
I don’t remember Xbox avatars doing the same shit..or do they?
There are different outfits to wear your Xbox live avatar for free. But I’m not sure if there are some that need to be purchased.
Anyway, is Nintendo really willing to make money on selling clothes to miis? Seriously? And I thought I had seen all the possible stupidities in my life…
See why I’m beginning to hate them now?
I do see.
Signs of the End Times detected.
Like every other one of their games?
Sound like they don’t really have the concept set in stone yet (lots of ‘could’ and ‘think’ there). I think this could work if they execute the idea correctly. It would be something similar to the interactive part of Xbox Live, only in your phone.
if they were smart, whatever they did, would all be free. At least with this app… For the games, I really would rather just buy a game straight up then be nickel and dimed throughout the game. UNfortunately, the latter is what they will likely do
Haven’t they said that Miitomo will be the only free2start game?
Not sure…. hope so. Should probably be free altogether though in my opinion. It is good for the branding and spreading that brand into younger hands, future fans, etc.
Not exactly. There will be more of them and more outrage to come.
They need more young people
You mean stupid people.
As long as it’s not an app that is chalk full of ads, then I’ll give it a try.
Along with disappointment.
This is going to be so bad. Not a license to print money Nintendo. This is a license to waste your own
More like “We’re a lazy ripoff of Miiverse and Tomodachi as one so give us your fucking pointless IAP scam money because we’re Nintendo and we say so!”
Fuck off with that garbage excuse for Nintendo’s first mobile garbage.