Nintendo’s future: ID based, smart licensing, Quality of Life [Update]

During its investor relations event today, Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata outlines the direction of the company for the foreseeable future. First and foremost: They’re not putting games on smart phones.

[Update: Iwata’s slides now clarify that he has not told his teams to not create games for smartphones. “I have not given any restrictions to the development team, even not ruling out the possibility of making games or using our game characters. However, if you report that we will release Mario on smart devices, it would be a completely misleading statement.”]

What the company IS doing is going to shift its focus from a device-based infrastructure to an ID-based one, as seen with the start of the addition of Miiverse to the 3DS and the associated account-sharing. Currently, the two install bases are disconnected. Going forward, and specifically referencing future handhelds and consoles, the company will connect these much more closely. This will also include delivering information, interactively, via smart devices. Perhaps this is a new way to deliver Nintendo Directs, or Pokemon Banks, or Miiverse, or — shudder — advertainment. Regardless, this new “on-demand” service of interactivity will be revealed later this year.

Moreover, the company will work closer with third parties to license its extensive IP. That could mean any number of things, though Iwata didn’t elaborate. Our thoughts? Allowing other developers to include Nintendo characters in their games (ie Yoshi’s Island in the newest Sonic), to more toys, to hopefully Zelda movies.

The Gamepad will also receive support, as Nintendo still believes that there is substantial value in the device, and will double down on its efforts to create and show that.

The big push, however, is what the company is calling QOL, or “Quality of Life”. Referencing the infamous Blue Ocean, the company understands that their shift is more towards providing an overall service that can benefit users of its devices, including health and activity. There are already plenty of health-monitoring wearables on the market, but Nintendo wants to enter this area with a completely unique, non-wearable way. Could this mean a Kinect-like device? Virtual Reality? Something else? More on this will be discussed later this year, and take effect in products in 2015 with the first returns coming in FY 2016.

Nintendo is aiming to once again revolutionize how we interact with games and each other. But is it all hype?

Source: Nintendo