Apple is always talking about the gaming titles available on App Store. In fact, there are over 50,000 games available for the iOS platform. Other companies like Nintendo and Sony reply by saying that titles available on iOS are not as fun and as engaging as games available on their platforms.
Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata once said that as long as he is in charge, Nintendo will only develop gaming titles for its own platform. This strategy has proved to be working in the past, but today consumers are getting more choices and investors are concerned that people will not choose to buy a Nintendo console over other consoles just because of the exclusive titles available for the platform.
After the introduction of PlayStation Move and Xbox Kinect, sales figures of Nintendo Wii have plummeted. At E3 this year, Nintendo promised to regain a higher number of sales with the introduction of Nintendo Wii U. Once again, investors believe this is not a smart strategy and may fail.
After all of this, it seems as Iwata may be forced to scrap this strategy and develop games for smartphones like iPhone and possibly Android, according to Bloomberg.
“Smartphones are the new battlefield for the gaming industry,” said Ohki, a fund manager at Tokyo-based Stats Investment Management Co. “Nintendo should try to either buy its way into this platform or develop something totally new.”
Nintendo has not yet publicly announced any amendments to its strategy, but hopefully they will do soon. If that doesn’t happen, history could repeat itself. Last time, it was Nokia that was too late to make changes, this time it could be Nintendo. Nokia is fighting today for marketshare but it’s just not working.