Nintendo might make dedicated controllers for its own mobile games

Nintendo may soon be making game controllers for ‘smart devices’ including smartphones, tablets and set-top TV boxes.

The news comes via the company’s 76th Annual General Meeting of Shareholders Q&A, where general manager of entertainment planning and developement, Shinya Takahashi had the following to say:

Physical controllers for smart device applications are available in the market and it is possible that we may also develop something new by ourselves. I believe Nintendo’s way of thinking is to look at whether action games are really not impossible (without a physical controller for smart device applications) to create and how we can make it happen to create such a game.

Big news for Nintendo fans

Last year, I wrote an article noting that Nintendo should do something like this, but there just wasn’t a way for that to happen. My how times have changed.

While it toys with smartphone experiences, TV gaming is where the company feels it should stake its claim. You can play games on Apple TV, but until this year’s WWDC, games had to make use of Apple’s own controller — even when a third-party controller was available.

That requirement has been dropped, which means Nintendo is free to create games that require its own controller while eschewing all others. It’s hardware exclusivity on a platform the company doesn’t own.

Nintendo everywhere

The company isn’t giving up on console gaming. The NX is in the offing, so it’s more likely we’ll see flagship games arrive there while it also makes apps and ‘time waster’ games for other platforms.

Pokemon Go is coming this July, and sports its own proprietary device (which is optional). Miitomo is already popular, and the company is promising five additional mobile games by next March — oddly when the NX is set to launch.

Sadly, talk of dedicated controllers for Nintendo games is just a discussion at this point. But a Kid Icarus fan with a big screen and an Apple TV can still dream.

via Polygon