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Nintendo Invests In Mobile Phone Content Provider
Nintendo recently purchased stock in Dwango co., the parent company of a Nico Nico Douga, a Japanese video content platform for mobile phones.
It's unclear exactly why Nintendo has purchased the stock. According to a report from Business Week, Yasuhiro Minagawa, a spokesperson for Nintendo, said that the stock purchases were made at the request of Dwango chairman Nobuo Kawakami for his "personal funding needs". Minagawa said that Nintendo does not have any plans to distribute games using the service.
Whatever the reason for the investment, it helped Nintendo's financial standing as it caused Nintendo's stock to rise to its highest numbers since August. Nintendo's stock numbers have been struggling since the announcement of the Wii U, but this news, along with recent strong Wii U sales in Japan, seem to show Nintendo gaining strength.
[Source: Business Week, via Siliconera, Joystiq]
Our Take
I'm curious if Nintendo has any plans to distribute some kind of media on mobile devices. I can't imagine a world where I would be playing Super Mario on a phone that Nintendo didn't make, but I also never thought I would have the option to play as both Mario and Sonic in the same fighting game. This stock purchase almost sounds like a personal favor to Dwango's chairman more than anything else. Nintendo is a secretive company, so whatever it has planned, I'm sure we won't find out for quite some time.
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