Nintendo “considering new ideas for the mobile business and continuing to work on development”
This information comes from the Q&A portion of Nintendo’s latest financial results briefing…
I thought that monetization would accelerate with the release of Mario Kart Tour, but while the number of players has increased, it does not seem to have greatly increased sales. Is your mobile business mainly focused on expanding the number of people who have access to Nintendo IP, with not as much emphasis placed on short-term monetization? And can we expect multiple anticipated titles for smart devices to be released in the next fiscal year onward?
Furukawa:
Regarding how we evaluate the current state of the mobile business, I think we’re making progress towards expanding the number of people who are in contact with Nintendo IP that is in line with our expectations. In particular, the trends in the number of downloads and players for Mario Kart Tour have shown solid progress, and we believe that opportunities to come into contact with Nintendo IP through the global prevalence of smart devices will increase, according to our expectations.
In addition, specific franchises such as Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and Fire Emblem Heroes have built ongoing relationships with our consumers through their operations, and have become a point of contact with consumers from a different approach from that of the dedicated video game platform business.
The primary purpose of the mobile business is to bring into contact with Nintendo’s games and characters the vast number of consumers who cannot be reached via dedicated video game systems alone. Ideally, this contributes to maximizing the Nintendo business as a whole. And yes, we are definitely considering new ideas for the mobile business and continuing to work on development. We will communicate this information when we are able to announce it.
