Kimishima: Nintendo Not Ready To Make Its Own Smartphone Yet

During Nintendo’s recent financial briefing last month, an investor asked whether it is possible if Nintendo is ready to make its very own smartphone, given that the company is now making their own smartphone apps.

Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima answered the question, saying that they have not reached the level whereby the smartphone business becomes one of Nintendo’s core pillars. See Kimishima’s full answer below.

Nintendo is a newcomer for the smart-device business, and there is still much we have to learn. Nintendo has a large stock of valuable IP characters and has developed many games. We cannot, however, simply port our existing games and IP to smart-device applications. A lot of thought is going into what kind of games for smart devices will

further our business and how we can continue to foster good relationships with our existing dedicated video game platform business. Among the various ideas, a primary concern is enabling our consumers to play on not only smart devices, but also our dedicated video game systems.

We want to build up the smart-device business as a core pillar of Nintendoʼs various businesses, but we have not yet reached that level. Nintendo is not at a stage where we can consider becoming a smart-device platform developer.