An upcoming 3DS game combines Mario with one of the top-grossing mobile apps in the world, but don’t mistake this for anything more than what it is: Nintendo using a popular mobile game to help its own hardware.
Late last night, developer GungHo Online Entertainment revealed that it is working on Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition, which is due out in April in Japan. This is the latest adaptation of the company’s megapopular Puzzle & Dragon mobile game, which has made nearly $1 billion in each of the last two years. This mashes up Mario art and characters with the gameplay of GungHo’s app, but it also signifies Nintendo’s strongest partnership yet with a mobile developer. So after years of begging from investors, is this a sign that Nintendo is finally softening up to the idea of making mobile games?
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We’ve reached out to Nintendo for comment on this story, but we’re still awaiting its response.
Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition is a premium-priced 3DS game. GungHo prices it at 4,000 yen, which is about $33. That alone shows that Nintendo still doesn’t really care about mobile except to use one of its most popular brands to boost Nintendo hardware. If this was Nintendo changing its strategy, maybe we’d see Mario making an appearance in Puzzle & Dragons proper on iOS and Android.
What’s happening here is that Nintendo is responding to the success of a different Puzzle & Dragons game: Puzzle & Dragons Z. This was the 2013 3DS port of the mobile game that went on to sell 1.2 million copies in Japan. It strips out all of the free-to-play and “monetization opportunities” and leaves behind the parts of the game that people actually enjoy. Puzzle & Dragons: Super Mario Bros. Edition is a way to release what is essentially the exact same game again with the chance to sell even better and to make more money for Nintendo.
Finally, Nintendo has done this sort of game partnership before. Here’s MacQuarie Capital analyst David Gibson on the history of Mario’s third-party collaborations:
Thanks everyone for the Mario licensed games – seems we have NBA Street, DDR, Mario v Sonic, Mario & Sony at Olympics, SSX, Fortune Street..
— David Gibson (@gibbogame) January 8, 2015
Again, this is Nintendo doing what it always does. If this is different in any way, it’s that this is the first time a mobile gaming giant has licensed Mario — but that’s just a result of who has money to make a deal with Nintendo right now.
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None of this means Nintendo will never go mobile. It’s just that this is not in any way a sign that a shift at the publisher is imminent.