Category: Mobile Gaming

Nintendo mobile gaming alliance formed

| March 23, 2015

The company has joined forces with a Japanese firm called DeNA Co. for developing games for smartphones and tablets.

Nintendo Inc. has been turning its back on the concept that mobile gaming would ever lead to any significant competition, but very recently, a new alliance with a Japanese smartphone based game company, DeNA Co., it looks like the company has changed its attitude.

This new partnership between Nintendo and DeNA will allow the companies to come together for mobile game development.

Nintendo has revealed that some of the best recognized trademark characters from its games, such as Pokémon and Super Mario, could soon be making their way into the mobile gaming environment. Until now, the company has been fiercely holding onto those names, keeping their appearances exclusive to its own platforms, such as the 3DS mobile devices and the Wii home consoles. These two companies have stated that they intend to form a global membership service for a range of different devices that include Nintendo gadgets, PCs, as well as mobile devices such as smartphones.

The plan is to launch this new mobile gaming service by the fall of this year.

Nintendo - Mobile GamingThe two companies have both expressed that the Nintendo mobile games that they will be producing will not simply be reworked versions of the existing titles for that company’s consoles. Instead, they will be mobile apps that are developed specifically for the experience of smartphone users.

This partnership will bring together the game development abilities and intellectual property at Nintendo with the mobile expertise at DeNA. The announcement of this alliance also revealed that Nintendo will be acquiring about a 10 percent stake in DeNA, as it obtains about 15 million shares. DeNA will be taking on about a 1.24 percent stake of Nintendo, thorugh about 1.759 million shares of that company.

The total acquisitions in this mobile gaming deal have an estimated value of $182 million, and the exchange will take place on April 2. This will represent the start of an important redirect for Nintendo as it enters into a space that it had previously left essentially alone.

PlayStation Mobile is shutting down this fall

| March 20, 2015

Sony has announced that it will no longer be continuing with the PSM platform on its Japanese language site.

Sony has now revealed that it will be shutting down its PlayStation Mobile platform, after having struggled with it off and one throughout its entire history, without ever reaching its hoped-for heights.

The company stated that when it comes to PSM, its mobile gaming is now officially coming to an end.

The PlayStation Mobile service is still going to remain active for a number of months, but users are going to be able to continue purchasing new content only until July 15, even though the service will still remain for a time after that. During the months that follow, customers will still be able to re-download any content that they had already previously purchased. However, no new purchases will be possible after that date. It will be important for PSM users to complete all of their downloads rather promptly, though, because after the full shutdown is complete, their content will no longer be available to re-download.

As of September 10, 2015, PlayStation Mobile will be shutting down entirely and will not provide service for existing users.

PlayStation Mobile - Shutting DownIt has been clear to many that right from the very start of this mobile gaming system, there have been struggles, and these were not challenges that would be easy to overcome. Sony tried very hard, and even waved the publisher license fee as of May 2013, in an attempt to make its platform more appealing to developers. Unfortunately for the company, this effort still didn’t go as planned.

Last year, PSM dropped its Android mobile gaming support, keeping itself open to indie developers with a focus on its PlayStation Vita. That said, the offerings were hardly bursting from the seams, even then.

Though this announcement is far from a declaration that indie games will stop appearing on the Vita, it should be recognized that Sony, itself, publishes a considerable number of games on the actual PlayStation Store. While PlayStation Mobile may be shutting its doors, it does look as though 2015 will be a positive year for fans of PS as a whole.