Category: Featured News

Nintendo plans to launch its first authentic mobile game in 2016

Nintendo has become the latest game developer and publisher to begin focusing more on mobile games. The Japanese company has a long history with making games mobile-friendly, being the premier name in the provider of handheld gaming consoles. Now, the company is unveiling its first game made specifically for smartphones: Miitomo. The game will serve as a type of social application, allowing users to share information with one another with their Mii avatars.

Company sees significant promise in the mobile gaming space as more consumers rely on their smartphones for entertainment

The company had initially planned to launch the game at the end of this year, but has delayed the launch until March of 2016. This has cast some doubts on Nintendo’s mobile gaming plans, leading to a 10% decrease in the company’s shares. Despite this, however, Nintendo believes that its Miitomo title will be a success among its longstanding fans, especially those that have become very interested in mobile games over the past several years.

Miitomo will make mobile games more social

Miitomo resembles other social applications in that it allows users to interact with one another in real time. They will be using their Mii avatars to accomplish this, with the avatars themselves serving as a way to allow user sot get to know one another. Nintendo intends to introduce some of its popular characters into the mobile game at a later date, introducing some nostalgia into the title and making it more familiar with consumers that have been Nintendo fans since the company got its beginning.

Nintendo will not be focusing exclusively on mobile games

Nintendo is just one of several companies that has begun to focus on mobile games. Konami, another Japanese developer and publisher, recently announced that it would be focusing almost exclusively on mobile titles for the foreseeable future. Nintendo does not intend to follow suit, but the company will be paying more attention to the mobile space, especially as the demand for enjoyable and highly social mobile games continues to rise among consumers.

The coffee giant is now embarking on the rollout of a new level of technology due to massive successes.

Starbucks is boosting the use of smartphone based solutions in its hundreds of coffee shop locations, greatly because of the tremendous successes it has seen in mobile payments.

Recent data has shown that 21 percent of payment transactions at Starbucks are completed over smartphones.

The successes that the coffee chain has seen has propelled it to the top of the mobile payments list, making the company the example for the way that mobile technology can be used to boost business and raise customer engagement. It has managed to accomplish this goal more effectively than any other company in the food and beverage service marketplace. It is precisely this message that was being shared along with the announcement from execs that the company had met the expectations of analysts for its fiscal fourth quarter earnings report. It reached a record breaking revenue of $4.9 billion, with profits of about $969 million.

Smartphone based ordering has been expanding outside the United States where mobile payments have been hot.

The mobile ordering option was rolled out in the U.S. last December. This allowed consumers to be able to skip the line by placing their coffee orders in advance through the app on their smartphone. By September, the feature reached all 7,400 stores across the country. The feature has since been making its way into additional markets with tests being launched in Canada and the United Kingdom.

According to execs from the company when they announced the company’s earnings, there have already been five million monthly transactions completed by customers who have been using the Mobile Order & Pay feature.

President of North American operations for Starbucks, Cliff Burrows, explained that “It has been incredible to see the adoption by customers across the country,” adding that “With each wave that we launch, the ramp rate has been quicker for adoption.”

It’s clear that even beyond mobile payments, Starbucks is continuing to lead the way in customer engagement and in revenue generation by way of shopper smartphones.