Nintendo Getting into Smartphone Apps, Mobile Gaming with DeNA Partnership: the NX Announcement and Reserving NX EB Games

On Tuesday, March 17, Nintendo left us wondering about their ominous NX system and what it will be. In the same press conference Nintendo also announced they will be working on smartphone apps and we recently received a little more insight on that.

President Satori Iwata says Nintendo will be working with the Japanese mobile company DeNA in hopes of taking over the app stores in the same fashion that has made Nintendo a cornerstone in the gaming market for the last few decades. In this partnership DeNA will handle service and Nintendo is going to develop the games.

Iwata talked about his new partnership with Time magazine:

"But for smart devices, in addition to the 'product' aspect of a game, the aspect of an ever-evolving 'service' is very important — a service that encourages consumers to play every day even for a short time. DeNA has extensive know-how in developing the 'service' side of things, and will be primarily responsible for the service-oriented operations," Iwata says.

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A photo posted by @nintendo on Mar 7, 2015 at 12:01pm PST

One question still up in the air is whether these games will be free. In his interview with the Times Iwata says Nintendo is looking to explore both options. DeNA believes that at the peak of this partnership the duo can reach more than 100 million daily active users. Monsterous download numbers like that are what Candy Crush has racked up.

Nintendo's stock in the gaming world is high right now with these two announcements. The NX news was so big apparently EB Games is having people reserve a copy of it even though nobody knows what it is. In the history of gaming that hasn't happened. For all we know NX might be the Guns N' Roses: Chinese Democracy of gaming; fans put down $10 to reserve it and it doesn't come out for another twenty years.