If today’s announcement of the impending release of a Pokemon app for the iPhone and Android had you all excited that you’d soon be able to play some more Nintendo games on your smartphones, well tough luck. Nintendo has just reconfirmed that it has no plans of releasing Nintendo games for smartphones, or for any other non Nintendo branded product, for that matter.
‘Nintendo’s strategy to develop software only for its own hardware “hasn’t changed and won’t change,”’Yasuhiro Minagawa, a spokesman for the Kyoto-based maker of the Wii game console and DS portable player, said today by phone. The Pokemon Company, 32 percent owned by Nintendo, is independent, he said, and it made the decision to release the app on the iOS.
It’s funny how vehemently Nintendo is denying this possibility, especially when you consider that Nintendo shares rose by as much as 4.9 percent, the most since March 16, upon the announcement of the iPhone app.
So there you have it folks. Although I think a short history course is in order here, since this app isn’t the first Nintendo game to appear on non Nintendo hardware. At various times in the past, games from the Mario, Zelda and Pokemon franchises have appeared on non Nintendo systems. Notably, Mario and Pokemon games have been published, by Nintendo, on the PC. So this isn’t half as big a deal as people are making it out to be.
