Yesterday Nintendo released their annual profit report and thanks to conservative estimates, Nintendo has posted a small profit this year, compared to the previous years where it incurred a loss. Nintendo’s partnership with DeNA is one of the new efforts that Iwata is hoping will propel Nintendo’s profit margins to greater heights and yesterday during the investor’s meeting, he gave a brief account of how Nintendo’s new service will work across devices.
Perhaps the greatest thing mentioned by Iwata is the fact that consumers will be able to use their new ID across both mobile and home and portable console systems. The idea is that consumers will only have one ID they need to access services across all aspects of Nintendo’s business, similar to what Sony tried to do with the Xperia Play phone a few years ago.
So far, the members input their Club Nintendo ID to use the services. With this new service, our members will be able to visit Nintendo’s website and log in with one ID, and they will receive various services including the ones based on their past purchases and gameplay records as well as services that will be an improved version of the current loyalty program.
With this new membership, we are planning to deploy services that will make playing Nintendo games with their game pals more fun regardless of which platform they are accessing.
It’s nice to hear this sort of information coming from Nintendo, as they’ve typically been behind on what’s offered in their online services. Most notably the friend code is an absolute pain to remember, especially when both parties have to share both numbers in order to play together. Perhaps that’s a feature Nintendo can reserve for parental features while giving the more general population something easier to access their new services.
Aside from the brief mention of the Club Nintendo replacement, Iwata also stated that the company hopes to have at least five mobile titles available before the end of this year.
