Nintendo has teamed up with Japanese mobile gaming firm DeNA to bring its iconic characters and games to smartphones. The companies will work together in developing games for “smart devices.” Nintendo will not be porting any of its existing games to smartphones, and instead develop new titles from the ground up to make sure that consumers get a “quality of game experience” from such a partnership. The partnership will not be limited to any specific Nintendo characters, but include all of the company’s IP. However, Nintendo and DeNA will be focusing on quality rather than quantity, so don’t expect them to flood the market with tons of games. Additionally, both companies are also developing a cross-platform service that will allow users to play game across a wide variety of devices, including consoles, smartphones, PCs and more. This service is slated to launch in the fall of 2015. This partnership will see both companies make an investment of 22 billion yen in each other. While Nintendo is buying a 10 percent stake in DeNA, the latter is buying 1.24 percent of Nintendo.
