Rumor: Nintendo is looking for more partners for developing smartphone games

Nintendo would be looking for new partners to be able to release more smartphone games. The current partnership with DeNa would not be enough. Nintendo has released fewer smartphone games than it planned.

Sources familiar with the plans told The Wall Street Journal that Nintendo is looking for other software developers to work with. The studio GungHo Online Entertainment Inc. from Tokyo is said to be one of the companies Nintendo is in talks with, although a spokesperson for GungHo denies that talks have taken place.

GungHo has released Puzzle & Dragon games for the Nintendo 3DS and has also obtained Nintendo permission for one of those titles to use characters from the Mario games. That could indicate good ties between the studio and Nintendo.

The goal of the new collaborations would be to be able to release more smartphone games. Nintendo entered into a partnership with DeNa in 2015 and then announced its plan to release five games for mobile devices by March 2017. At that time, however, only three apps appeared: Miitomo, Super Mario Run and Fire Emblem Heroes. In November, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp released a fourth game.

The fact that Nintendo is looking for new partners does not mean that the cooperation with DeNa is ending. According to the WSJ, the company’s CEO said at a numbers conference that the company is working on more games as part of its existing partnership with Nintendo. In May, there was a rumor that Nintendo is also working on a Zelda game for smartphones, but nothing is known about it yet.

Super Mario Run