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Miitomo

During a meeting with investors earlier this week, Nintendo unveiled its very first smartphone game. Dubbed "Miitomo," this complimentary-to-play game lets you use an adorable avatar to interact with your friends without investing in Nintendo hardware. This certainly isn't the kind of mobile game many of the states were hoping for, merely can this oddball social game keep this gaming giant relevant in a rapidly evolving market?

Unfortunately, we won't be seeing a Nintendo game on smartphones this year. While we expected Nintendo and DeNA's first release to ship at the end of 2022, it is now officially delayed until March of 2022. Thankfully, we did go an early wait at what Nintendo has planned for united states of america. Miitomo, a portmanteau of Nintendo's famous avatars and a Japanese word for "friend," has been confirmed to exist a free-to-play feel. However, Nintendo was quick to authorize that some of its other smartphone games volition feature a more traditional buy-to-play financial model.

By all accounts, this new game is focused heavily on communicating with your friends while looking at cute avatars on your phone. This isn't going to exist the next Puzzle & Dragons or Disharmonism of Clans, but I'll wager that this will do well — particularly in Japan. That market has already shown how willing it is to dump money on sticker packs for more traditional messaging clients, so it's no surprise that Nintendo wants in on some of that easy cash. Charge 100 yen for a Mii Mario cap, and watch your pockets abound, right?

While the 3DS was in no mode a failure, it never received the same kind of attention as the wildly successful original DS platform. Part of that can exist attributed to the poor launch, and the zipper to lackluster 3D technology, simply it'south clear that the major uptick in smartphone adoption is what's really hindering Nintendo'southward handheld. We live in a much dissimilar world than we did when the DS get-go launched dorsum in 2004.

It hurts my poor cornball centre to say this, but this announcement is telling of Nintendo'due south future on mobile platforms. It seems similar it's here to make some cold hard cash off of existing trends — not to motion the medium frontward. Accept a expect at the games that DeNA has released previously, and all of your hopes and dreams will become right out the window. Everything about this seems common cold and calculating to me, despite the fact that it'south couched in warm and fuzzy language almost togetherness.

With the new NX platform effectually the corner, it'south obvious that Nintendo still believes it needs to be a player in the hardware market place. Then far, these "striking" games on smartphones seem to be here simply to placate uppity investors. I remain unconvinced that Nintendo really cares virtually making high-quality iOS and Android games. But until nosotros see what the other iv titles take in store, it's hard to guess how heavily Nintendo is actually investing here.

Nintendo also revealed that a brand new business relationship layer chosen the "Nintendo Account" will necktie your social media accounts, your Nintendo ID, and your smartphone apps together in a single service. Yous'll be able to motility game saves around wirelessly, and this system will as well serve equally a loyalty program to supervene upon the recently deceased Social club Nintendo. That all sounds like a big step in the right direction, but all of the hubbub surrounding the smartphone games thoroughly overshadowed this proficient news. Permit'due south just hope that this is the last Nintendo service we'll always take to sign up for.