DeNA West CEO Shintaro Asako reiterates that more details are coming ‘soon’ in regards to the company’s collaboration with Nintendo on new smartphone titles.
Earlier this year, Nintendo shocked many with the announcement that the company would release a series of smartphone games in collaboration with mobile specialist DeNA. Now, the CEO of DeNA West has stated that we won’t have to wait too long for more details.
Speaking at the GamesBeat 2015 conference in San Francisco, Shintaro Asako said “soon, we should be able to announce the game.” However, he chose not to elaborate upon what the game will consist of, or exactly when we could expect for the title to see release.
However, Asako did reiterate that Nintendo plans to release five games via the partnership before the end of March 2017. Given that timeframe, it’s reasonable to expect that the first smartphone release from Nintendo should at least be detailed further in the coming months.
Nintendo has previously stated an expectation that its first smartphone title would release before the end of 2015, but those comments came back in March. While the initial partnership was given some fanfare, we’ve heard very little about how development is progressing, which makes it difficult to speculate as to a likely schedule.
For fans, the biggest question mark is what to expect from Nintendo’s hotly anticipated smartphone output. With a host of iconic franchises — not to mention several games that would be perfect mobile ports — there are a wide range of opportunities for the company to pursue as it attempts to carve out a niche in the marketplace.
Over the summer, Nintendo launched an iOS and Android port of its 3DS title Pokemon Shuffle to positive response. However, this was not one of the titles set to be released as part of the deal with DeNA, and should perhaps be looked upon as something of a test run.
Pokemon would seem to a potent franchise for Nintendo to bring to mobile given its continuing popularity. However, given that the series has long been crucial to the success of the company’s handheld hardware, don’t expect to see anything like the mainline titles — even Nintendo’s home consoles have only been given spin-offs.
At present, there are still far more questions than answers in relation to Nintendo’s burgeoning relationship with mobile gaming. However, given the comments made by Asako, it seems clear that more substantial news is on its way.
[“Source- gamerant”]
