Nintendo Is Finally Bringing Its Games To Mobile, Get The Details

Nintendo is making further steps to get in on the mobile market. The company recently announced that two of its popular franchises will make the leap from the dedicated gaming platforms to Android and iOS smart devices. The two titles happen to be Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing.

According to Popular Science, the news went out about Nintendo's plans to bridge more of its hardcore titles with the mobile gaming space in connection with the announcement that the Nintendo NX is set for release next March along with the cross-generation game The Legend of Zelda.

Nintendo not only confirmed the news in their financial report but also via tweet.

They don't reveal exactly when we can expect to see either of the two games on mobile devices. Even more than that, the mobile efforts by Nintendo aren't really addressed in their fiscal outlook for 2017. Instead they focus on The Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo NX and Wii U, as well as the upcoming slate of games due to drop for the Nintendo 3DS, including Pokemon Sun and Moon, Kirby: Planet Robobot and Metroid Prime: Federation Force. They also mention that they will continue to put a focus on Amiibo, expanding the line-up and maintaining the sales momentum for the real-to-life toy department.

The only thing they mention about smart devices and mobile gaming is that following Miitomo they will “release new apps” to expand their revenue in that sector of the market. Well, now we know that the new apps will include Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing.

What we don't know is if these will be remakes or remastered editions of older games, or if they will be brand new iterations within the franchise similar to how Pokemon GO is being handled by Niantic and is going in a completely different direction from the standard Pokemon titles.

Popular Science notes that it's good Nintendo is getting in on the mobile sector since mobile gaming makes more than traditional console and PC gaming, pointing to a report from NewZoo, which estimated that the gaming industry in total brought in $91.8 billion in 2015 with $30.4 billion being generated globally by tablet and phone based games.

While it's true that casual games make more money than the hardcore sector, this has always been true in the world of gaming, with a lot of casual titles on Yahoo!, having been some of the top revenue-generating games back during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

The thing is, just because casual games in the mobile market make a lot of money, doesn't mean that hardcore gaming companies like Nintendo could also make money in that sector. They're very different audiences, and just putting Super Mario or Pokemon on smart phones doesn't guarantee that Nintendo will have instant success. For some companies it's been an ebb and flow when it comes to mobile gaming and some developers felt it just wasn't worth it. We'll find out if it is worth it for Nintendo when they release Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing on smart devices at some point in the near future.