Nintendo Reportedly Looking For New Partners To Make More Mobile Games

Nintendo has already released a few mobile games for smartphones in the past year. However, it looks like the Japanese gaming firm is planning to ramp up its mobile games development by partnering with more developers.

Nintendo is said to be actively seeking out new developers so that it could make and release more mobile games for smartphones as it tries to play catch up with other gaming companies. According to The Wall Street Journal, Nintendo has already spoken with “Puzzle & Dragons” developer GungHo for a potential partnership. GungHo and Nintendo have already worked together before, with some of the latter’s "Super Mario" characters already appearing in the “Puzzle & Dragons” game on the 3DS.

No other mobile game developers were mentioned in the report, nor is there any information on other potential partners for Nintendo. It’s unclear at this point how many companies Nintendo is currently negotiating with for potential partnerships. The WSJ’s report also claims that Nintendo isn’t really interested in investing in these companies. It’s very likely that Nintendo will simply align with other companies so that it could keep making and releasing more mobile games.

In 2015, Nintendo partnered with DeNA to start bringing its IPs and games to smartphones. Nintendo also has a 10 percent stake in DeNA as part of its alliance. Through DeNA, Nintendo was able to release “Miitomo,” “Super Mario Run,” “Fire Emblem Heroes,” and most recently, “Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.”

When Nintendo first announced its partnership with DeNA, it originally planned to release five mobile games for Android and iOS devices by March 2017. The year is already coming to a close and Nintendo has only released four mobile games, as pointed out by Gameranx.

If Nintendo is serious about releasing games for smartphones, it would have to speed up its efforts moving forward. Partnering with more developers could help in making that a reality.