Refusing to move games is Nintendo's biggest mistake

Introduction: Nintendo is not ready to change its attitude towards mobile gaming. This may be the biggest mistake it has made.
Nintendo is not ready to change its attitude towards mobile gaming. This may be the biggest mistake it has made.

In answer to investor questions, Nintendo CEO Rock Iwata Satoru Iwata reiterated the company's long-standing stance on mobile gaming: "Basically, Nintendo uses smart devices to strengthen relationships with users rather than doing business directly with smart devices." ”

Of course, that doesn't mean Nintendo will completely ignore mobile games. Rock Iwata stressed the importance of optimizing its website for mobile phones and the launch of mobile sites for Mii characters in the company. Mii is a Nintendo version of Avatar, which has been used in a variety of games, including "Friends gathering: A New Life" (Tomadachi).

"If we can expand the visibility of Mii to the user's smart devices, and if users can use Mii characters on social media to create avatars of their personal pages, we believe the vast majority of users will be satisfied." We are now working to develop such things. "He said to investors.

In an interview with Eric Johnson, the tech blogger Re/code, Nintendo US President and COO Reggie Fellers Ames (Reggie Fils-aime) also stressed the view that "our philosophy has not changed, We still believe that players and users need to have a unique, differentiated gaming experience. One of the ways to achieve this goal is to provide unique, differentiated hardware devices. ”

The gold mine of mobile games

But not releasing mobile games will make Nintendo miss a lot of opportunities. Because the mobile game market is a very large market. According to the latest report from App Annie, a market research firm, 75% of the game spending takes place on iOS, and 80% of game spending takes place on Android. Casual games, such as gold-card Kardashian: Hollywood (Kim Kardashian Yap), created 43 million of billions of dollars in revenue in the third quarter alone. The "Candy Smash Legend" (Candy Crush) game was also a great success, the game's developer King reported that its adjusted profit of 177.4 million U.S. dollars, about 0.56 U.S. dollars per share, more than the expected 0.47 U.S. dollars per share.

The size of mobile gaming will continue to grow, according to Juniper Research, a market-study firm. Juniper the company predicts that tablet gaming will reach $13.3 billion trillion by 2019, compared with $3.6 billion in 2014.

Other gaming companies have achieved varying degrees of success in the mobile gaming market. For example, EA announced its second-quarter revenue of $1.22 billion, thanks largely to its development in the mobile gaming world. The company has 155 million active mobile gamers each month.

Hope of a remedy

But Nintendo still has hope of a remedy. It can start with amiibos hands. Amiibos is equivalent to Disney's "Infinite World" (Infinity) and the dynamic view of the "small Rons of the Great Adventure" (Skylanders). They can "scan" real-world dolls into the game.

The move as a mobile device launched the "small Rons of the big Adventure" toy has been a great success. The tablet computer version of the Big Adventure of Little Rons also comes with a dedicated controller to help players start the game. Logically, Nintendo's next move should be to launch a Tablet PC version of Amiibos.

Nintendo is also ready to work with loot crate to provide Amiibo subscription services.

If Nintendo lets amiibo run on any device and work with a third party to develop game characters, it could have a huge impact on the mobile world.

Many have urged Nintendo to do the same, including its investors and in-house staff. The company's top managers and rock Iwata have had serious disagreements over this, with almost an "internal riot".

The undeniable development potential of mobile games and the growing clamour for Nintendo to move into the mobile gaming arena have proved to be a powerful demonstration to Nintendo and Rock Iwata that its future will be bright if it develops mobile games. It just needs to be more open, braver, and try something new.