For years Nintendo refused to enter the mobile space – you could only play Mario, Zelda and Pokemon on Nintendo gear, but this may about to change. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said the company is currently studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business, but he cautions that it is not as simply as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone, reports the Financial Post.
In any case, it now appears that it is just a matter of time before Nintendo adopts a more liberal policy or maybe even transforms into a hardware agnostic publisher. Earlier this week the company slashed Wii U sales forecasts by a whopping 70 percent.
It is a nasty conundrum for Nintendo. Hardcore gamers are buying gaming PCs or powerful PS4 and Xbox One consoles from Sony and Microsoft. Meanwhile casual gamers who used to be Nintendo’s target audience are shifting to mobiles and tablets. The company is stuck in the middle, as it has nothing to offer in the smartphone/tablet space, yet it lacks the hardware and the titles to go after more serious gamers.
The big question is how Nintendo plans to go about it. It can simply start publishing games for iOS and Android, or it can try to come up with smart hardware of its own, like Android-based gaming tablets.
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