DeNA shares finer details of Nintendo's partnership, analysts weigh in

The following info comes from DeNA chief executive Isao Moriyasu...

- DeNA has some of the skills needed to help Nintendo bridge the gap to smartphones
- this includes its ability to crunch vast amounts of data on how gamers play]
- the partnership is “going smoothly”
- Nintendo declined to comment on its partnership with DeNA
- Mr. Moriyasu said he met Mr. Iwata in 2010 to ask him about the possibility of developing Nintendo games for mobile
- in 2013, Mr. Iwata sounded out DeNA on whether it could take a role in building a service to develop Nintendo games
- Nintendo is in charge of game development, DeNA’s focus is on post-release, back-end operations
- DeNA has teams of engineers who track how long users are battling a monster before quitting
- they also look at what motivates users to buy extra weapons
- DeNA then adjusts the games to encourage users to play longer or spend more money on in-game purchases
- the pair are still on track to release five titles together by March 2017
- all of the games currently in development with Nintendo are free to play
- for Miitomo, users will be able to buy clothing for their avatars
- Mr. Moriyasu is testing Miitomo on a specially installed iPhone kept under tight security in its headquarters.

“I’m sure DeNA has a lot of ideas about mobile games they could create for Nintendo. The question is, is Nintendo listening?" - Serkan Toto, a Tokyo-based game consultant

“At this point it’s unclear whether they will succeed. There are countless smartphone applications and games being produced globally, and DeNA is still relatively unknown outside Japan.” - Hitoshi Sato, senior analyst at InfoCom Research