Nintendo announces its first smartphone game, but is it too little too late?

Nintendo announces its first smartphone game, but is it too little too late?

During a meeting with investors earlier this week, Nintendo unveiled its very first smartphone game. Dubbed “ Miitomo ,” this free-to-play game lets you use an adorable avatar to interact with your friends without investing in Nintendo hardware. This certainly isn’t the kind of mobile game many of us were hoping for, but can this oddball social game keep this gaming giant relevant in a rapidly evolving market?

Unfortunately, we won’t be seeing a Nintendo game on smartphones this year. While we expected Nintendoand DeNA’s first release to ship at the end of 2015, it is now officially delayed until March of 2016. Thankfully, we did get an early look at what Nintendo has planned for us. Miitomo , a portmanteau of Nintendo’s famous avatars and a Japanese word for “friend,” has been confirmed to be a free-to-play experience. However, Nintendo was quick to qualify that some of its other smartphone games will feature a more traditional buy-to-play financial model.

By all accounts, this new game is focused heavily on communicating with your friends while looking at cute avatars on your phone. This isn’t going to be the next Puzzle & Dragons or Clash of Clans , but I’ll wager that this will do well — especially in Japan. That market has already shown how willing it is to dump money on sticker packs for more traditional messaging clients, so it’s no surprise that Nintendo wants in on some of that easy cash. Charge 100 yen for a Mii Mario cap, and watch your pockets grow, right?

While the 3DSwas in no way a failure, it never received the same kind of attention as the wildly successful original DS platform. Part of that can be attributed to the poor launch, and the attachment to lackluster 3D technology, but it’s clear that the major uptick in smartphone adoption is what’s really hindering Nintendo’s handheld. We live in a much different world than we did when the DS first launched back in 2004.

It hurts my poor nostalgic heart to say this, but this announcement is telling of Nintendo’s future on mobile platforms. It seems like it’s here to make some cold hard cash off of existing trends — not to move the medium forward. Take a look at the games that DeNA has released previously, and all of your hopes and dreams will go right out the window. Everything about this seems cold and calculating to me, despite the fact that it’s couched in warm and fuzzy language about togetherness.

With the new NX platformaround the corner, it’s obvious that Nintendo still believes it needs to be a player in the hardware market. So far, these “hit” gameson smartphones seem to be here simply to placate uppity investors. I remain unconvinced that Nintendo actually cares about making high-quality iOS and Android games. But until we see what the other four titles have in store, it’s hard to gauge how heavily Nintendo is actually investing here.

Nintendo also revealed that a brand new account layer called the “Nintendo Account” will tie your social media accounts, your Nintendo ID, and your smartphone apps together in a single service. You’ll be able to move game saves around wirelessly, and this system will also serve as a loyalty program to replace the recently deceased Club Nintendo. That all sounds like a big step in the right direction, but all of the hubbub surrounding the smartphone games thoroughly overshadowed this good news. Let’s just hope that this is the last Nintendo service we’ll ever have to sign up for.