Features

Opinion: The Nintendo and DeNA partnership is terrible

Portents of doom

Opinion: The Nintendo and DeNA partnership is terrible
|
Agree? Disagree? Here's the argument from the other side.

You probably feel it too. A creeping sense of dread, a crawling at the back of your neck that whispers of the end-times. All the darkest nights have closed in and Nintendo is making smartphone games with DeNA.

"But it might be fine," you whisper to yourself, huddled around a CRT TV exuding the warming glow of Duck Hunt.

Was Sonic fine? Was Pac-Man fine? Was that other thing you like fine?

Let's not kid ourselves here, this is a marriage of material convenience. A gluing together designed to create the ultimate gouger. Sharpened on your memories, lubricated by your tears, scooping out wodges of cash from your digital wallets.

"But Nintendo might port some of its classic titles," you whimper, stroking one of those SNES lightguns that looked like a bazooka.

But it won't. The company has made it clear that everything coming out of this new partnership will be designed from the ground up for smart mobile devices.

From the payment model to the one-touch gameplay. Hello Flappy Mario, hi there Angry Metroids, how's it going Puzzle & Dragons but with the characters from Star Fox.

"But if Nintendo is developing everything then there'll be the same quality control as with its own hardware," you mumble, nuzzling your face into the cartridge slot of a tear-and-snot-slick N64.

You say that, but the quality control is in place to protect Nintendo's reputation in a completely different sphere. Mobile games fit into a different place, a darker place, a place where different rules apply, where success is measured in very different ways.

And what if it all bleeds through? What if there's cross pollination and the gloom dribbles into your Nintendo console experience. Micro-transactions. MICRO-TRANSACTIONS.

"But there might be scope for some real innovation in the mobile sector here," you gargle, rubbing a grubby GameCube controller over your exposed chest.

You're absolutely right, there might be. But take a look at the top-grossing mobile charts. Find me some innovation there, find me a spark of ingenuity outside monetisation and compulsion loops.

And let's not beat around the bush. Nintendo isn't going to be happy with sitting mid-table. It'll want to be at the top, raking in the cash like a giant cash-raking rake. No one ever heard of an innovative rake.

"But all I've ever wanted is to be able to play Zelda on my iPhone," you whine, gently batting at a dangling Wii nunchuck.

And if time has taught us anything it's that getting what you want usually involves not getting what you want. It'll be Zelda via Final Fantasy: All The Bravest. Zelda via Blood Brothers. Zelda via something else that people use as an example to show mobile games are awful.

Or it'll be a slew of meaningless companion apps. Tiny mini-games that bore in seconds and are deleted in minutes. Pointless prodding, wasted opportunities, something about free to play.

"But... but..." you slobber onto the fingerprint-smeared screen of your Wii U gamepad.

Exactly my friend. Exactly.

Now tell us how stupid we are in the comments below.
Harry Slater
Harry Slater
Harry used to be really good at Snake on the Nokia 5110. Apparently though, digital snake wrangling isn't a proper job, so now he writes words about games instead.