Nintendo is ‘looking’ into virtual reality

Nintendo has a new smartphone game and a new dedicated gaming system coming soon, but it’s also taking a peek at this whole virtual reality thing.

In a briefing with investors, the publisher said that it is “looking” at VR, according to industry analyst Serkan Toto. The company provided no other details about what that means or whether it has deeper plans, but this is Nintendo acknowledging that this is a space it should try to understand. With the Wii U barely scraping by and the 3DS dwindling fast, Nintendo may also find the projected $120 billion VR industry interesting for reasons that concern its bottom line.

So Nintendo (at the briefing) just said no change in plans for the smartphone app roll out. Says they "are looking" at VR – with no details.

— Dr. Serkan Toto / Kantan Games Inc. (@serkantoto) February 2, 2016

Without understanding what the NX is beyond a follow-up to the Wii U and 3DS, it’s difficult to understand Nintendo’s path into VR from where it is today. Maybe the upcoming system has some sort of way of working with virtual reality, but that seems unlikely since that would make the system either expensive or dependent on a peripheral. Instead, expect something a bit more traditional.

The company is also getting ready to focus heavily on smartphone games with the first release, Miitomo, coming in March. After that, Nintendo will release around a half dozen other smartphone games with its partner DeNA.

And when Nintendo isn’t working on NX or smartphones, it still has a Wii U and 3DS to support and a Zelda game to finish.