Please support Game Informer. Print magazine subscriptions are less than $2 per issue
Report: Nintendo Planning Mobile App To Connect With Users, User-Based ID
As we suspected, Nintendo is planning to engage with users via one or more smartphone applications. President Satoru Iwata revealed some details during an investor briefing currently taking place.
Analyst David Gibson is present and translating in real time via Twitter, and the Wall Street Journal is updating a liveblog. During his presentation, Iwata suggested that the Nintendo Network ID will have a role in the future, but that Nintendo wants to now change the way it works so that it is user-based rather than device-based.
Nintendo won’t be porting its games to mobile devices, but it wants to connect with users on their smart devices. This will go beyond advertising, as Gibson relays Iwata’s recognition that the engagement must be fun. This hints at the minigames and other activities that have recently been reported on, though no specific examples seem to have been given.
[Source: @gibbogame, Wall Street Journal]
Our Take
Nintendo is walking a tightrope with this mobile strategy. It can’t give too much, or else it devalues its existing business model. It can’t do too little, or it won’t entice customers to use the app at all. I’m unsure how Nintendo will transition untapped audience to use the app at all, nor how it will hook those people enough to make them customers.
I’d like to ask you to support Game Informer’s continued coverage of games with a subscription. For less than two dollars per issue, we mail you a full year of 10 print magazines, each with cover stories and preview features filled with exclusive details about the most exciting upcoming games. We profile and interview game creators. We look back on the rich history of gaming, and we celebrate what’s next.
Here on the website, we offer much of our content for free, including game reviews, daily news, videos, event coverage, and more – all with minimal ads.
We do so with a small editorial team, alongside contributing paid writers from around the world – over 65 individuals from 9 countries around the world, just in the last couple of years.
It’s not possible without support.
In a time when game makers and games coverage have faced hard struggles and layoffs, the future of this 30+ year magazine and community is at risk. Our new standalone magazine subscription is the number one way you can keep us alive – and we believe you’ll get a pretty fantastic gaming magazine in your mailbox every few weeks for your trouble.
Thank you.
