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With recent speculation suggesting several things about the future of Nintendo’s business, they have now confirmed that they will be working with smartphones.

It’s no secret that the ‘big 3’ of video game companies (Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft) have lost some market share to smartphones. With portable devices that function as both phones and low-end games consoles, offering users thousands of high quality games for cheap prices (and there are plenty of free to play apps), all whilst being highly upgradeable thanks to operating systems updates, it’s no wonder that bigger consoles have lost out on some sales. The real winners here, are those who make the games, allowing them to bring their titles to more platforms to increase sales and brand awareness. As both a video game developer, publisher and console manufacturer, Nintendo are finally realising which direction they need to take their business in.

Nikkei suggested it, Nintendo denied it and now Nintendo have done a complete 180, announcing that they will in fact be bringing some sort of content to smartphones to address the point that’s discussed above. Nintendo’s President, Satoru Iwata, explained the smartphone development at a business meeting in Tokyo earlier this week, saying that they could use phones to show off “the value of ‘’[Nintendo’s] entertainment offerings, thus encouraging people to participate in Nintendo platforms.”

It effectively sounds like it’s going to be used as a marketing vehicle, as was first suggested but as was also explained at the conference, Iwata also said that “[He had not given any restrictions to the development team, even not ruling out the possibility of making games or using [Nintendo] game characters. However, if [the media reports] that [Nintendo] will release Mario on smart devices, it would be a completely misleading statement.” So there you have it, we may not see Mario and co. on our smartphones, but it’s still a possibility. As for the fruits of this new direction? Iwata says that “It is [Nintendo’s] intention to release some application on smart devices this year.”

We’ll keep you posted once we know more.

Source: Kotaku

Amid rumours that Nintendo are going to ditch the Wii U, the Japanese company have now announced plans for the next console in their hardware lineup.

The Nintendo Wii U is failing. I know it, you know it and Nintendo very much know it. They’ve seen the results in their lacklustre sales figures (the company revealed that the console had only sold 2.8 million consoles in 2013, way off their estimation of 9 million Wii Us sold during the year) and in order to turn their fortunes around they need to do something. The main problem with the console is its branding. Many retailers have reported that consumers think the Wii U is an add-on for the original Wii while other consumers just think its family friendly stance and its weak specs just can’t compete with the PS4 and the Xbox One. This is not a problem that Nintendo can solve overnight, which may be exactly why they have announced that they are working on a brand new console.

The console, discussed by Satoru Iwata, the company’s president, will have a distinctly health-based focus, ushering in Nintendo’s new stance on ‘QOL’ (Quality of Life) as they seek to improve the lives Nintendo loving consumers and not just entertain them. What we also know about the brand new platform is that it will be based on non-wearable monitoring technology, meaning that similar to the Xbox One’s Kinect camera (which can monitor a player’s heart rate wirelessly as they play) Nintendo’s project will be hands-free and is also said to be the next step for Nintendo’s oft-forgotten about Vitality Sensor.

In addition to this, the console will be out some time in 2015 and 2016 and it will work with games in some capacity, leading many to think that this is the successor to the Nintendo Wii U that was been speculated about for weeks. The question on Wii U users’ lips, of course, is ;what does this mean for the console that they bought?’ It means a great deal, actually. As Nintendo have had a hold on the ‘games as fitness’ market for some time, with Wii Sports and Wii Fit on the original Nintendo Wii being high selling points for the console. It could mean that Nintendo’s next console is going to put all of its eggs in the health and fitness basket, which, without competition from Sony, Microsoft, Apple and many other tech brands, is a relatively untapped market.

That’s all we know at the moment as Iwata mentioned the device during a business presentation and not a product announcement for it, but as Nintendo are expected to reveal more information about the console later this year, we’ll keep you posted.

Source: Wall Street Journal

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Will Nintendo’s Newly Announced Console Replace the Wii U?