Later this year, Nintendo will be launching their biggest property on smartphones with Super Mario Run, a new sidescrolling platformer being released exclusively for iPhones. The aim with this game, as is the aim with every Nintendo product released on smartphones, is to create a sort of halo effect around Nintendo products, and prompt players to look into investing in Nintendo hardware to get richer experiences with Nintendo brands.
“For many years our mission in approaching hardware has been our goal of expanding the number of people playing games,” Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, and the creator of Super Mario, said in recent interview (via My Nintendo News). “Now, people are having these interactive experiences through their smart devices and so that’s accomplished this great mission of helping to turn more people into gamers. We’re using this opportunity to bring our characters to this audience and let them experience the fun of our games and hopefully bring them back to our platforms.”
It’s a strategy that has worked for Nintendo in the past- when Pokemon GO launched on smartphones earlier this year, and generated a wave of hysteria, sales of Nintendo 3DS, and of Pokemon games on it, went up as result, too. If it could work then, it can work now- and that is almost certainly what Nintendo are hoping for, too.