Nintendo to finally develop smartphone games featuring its iconic cast of characters

For the longest time gamers and inventors have been clamoring for Nintendo to venture into the smartphone games business. Those wishes are finally coming true as Nintendo announced today it has entered into a "business and capital alliance" with DeNA Co. to develop and operate games for smartphone devices starring Nintendo characters and to build a new multi-device online membership service.

"Leveraging the strength of Nintendo’s intellectual property (IP) and game development skills in combination with DeNA’s world-class expertise in mobile games, both companies will develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo’s IP, including its iconic game characters, for smart devices," Nintendo said in a statement today. "The alliance is intended to complement Nintendo’s dedicated video game systems business and extend Nintendo’s reach into the vast market of smart device users worldwide. Under the alliance, DeNA will also be able to strengthen its gaming business at a global scale by leveraging Nintendo’s IP."

Nintendo also noted that the partnership will only develop new original games optimized for smart devices rather than ports of Nintendo Wii U or 3DS games to smartphones.

Nintendo and DeNA also plans to develop an online membership service that will be accessible from smart devices, PC, and Nintendo systems like the 3DS and Wii U. With a targeted launch in fall of 2015, the membership service will be built on DeNA's "extensive experience and capabilities in online membership services." The new service will reportedly replace Nintendo's customer loyalty program Club Nintendo which will shut down for good this year.

For the longest time, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata had opposed developing games featuring Nintendo characters on smart devices. While he had shown interest in developing apps to supplement Nintendo's brand, he had previously expressed concern that releasing key franchises like Mario, Zelda, or Pokemon on smart devices may negatively impact 3DS sales. Of course, he's also not blind to the growing trend in gaming on smart devices.

"… with the spread of smart devices, we have increasingly heard a variety of opinions on the future of the dedicated video game system business, and in particular relatively pessimistic ones," Iwata said today. "We lost the balance of revenue and expenses as the era of the super strong yen occurred during the transition periods from Nintendo DS to Nintendo 3DS and from Wii to Wii U, and we were not able to make these platform transitions as smoothly as we had expected."