News

Nintendo announces Skylanders-esque NFP figurines and Mario Kart TV smartphone service

Make room on your shelves

Nintendo announces Skylanders-esque NFP figurines and Mario Kart TV smartphone service
|

Shortly after announcing a $229 million operating loss, Nintendo slid a pair of interesting tidbits into its investor presentation this week.

Namely that it's taking on Disney Infinity / Skylanders with a line of NFC figures and that it's rolling out a Mario Kart 8 smartphone service.

First things first, the toys.

Because Nintendo likes to do things its own way, the toys in question are referred to as NFP (Nintendo Figure Platform) - but they'll use the same NFC technology currently in place for the likes of Skylanders and Disney Infinity.

As with those other toys, players will be able to take the character with them between infrared-reading platforms linked up to Wii U and 3DS systems.

These figurines will be able to read and write game data across multiple titles, so players can customize and level up the figures as they'd like.

We don't have too much more to report about those now, but Nintendo hopes that it'll be able to show these off at E3.

Don't worry, we'll brave the lines for you.

Mario Kart TV

As part of a bid to reverse the Wii U's fortunes, Nintendo also announced the upcoming launch of "Mario Kart TV" (tentative name), Nintendo's first smartphone service, to launch alongside Mario Kart 8 later this month.

Those looking to fire off blue shells from their smartphones might be disappointed by MK TV, however, as it won't actually allow you to play Mario Kart on your phone.

Instead, it'll allow you to watch official and user-generated videos of races and check in on global rankings - oh, and you'll need and Nintendo Network ID to login.

We'll keep you updated with news of Mario Kart TV and the NFP figurines as we have it to report.

Matthew Diener
Matthew Diener
Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.