After a successful period of mobile revenue with Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo is partnering with DeMa for even more mobile games. The development team is forming a new studio, Nintendo Systems, and will create new games on Android and more.
The joint venture, which will open in April 2023, is said to “enhance the digitization of Nintendo’s business”. While not all mobile ventures are successful, there have been a number of high-income titles.
Nintendo’s Fire Emblem Heroes, for example, has proved hugely popular. The title has netted the company over $1 billion in microtransactions throughout its release.
Nintendo Systems will revive the partnership between the Big N and DeNA. The business partnership started in 2015, but has slowed down in recent years. After disappointing revenues on titles such as Mario Kart Tour, no new titles have been released since 2019.
Instead, Nintendo has partnered with other development studios. In 2022, Nintendo continued its partnership with Niantic for Pikmim Bloom, an AR exploration game like Pokémon Go.
The extension of this partnership by Nintendo may be due to the slowdown in Nintendo Switch hardware sales. The company’s financial report revealed that Switch sales are down 19.2% year over year.
It looks like mobile games will be Nintendo’s backup plan… again. With no sign of the Nintendo Switch successor on the horizon, mobile revenue will once again support the company.
