Nintendo retreats to arm's length engagement with mobile | Opinion

gamesindustry.biz:

Rob Fahey

Contributing Editor

Friday 25th March 2022

Cygames

Nintendo

This summer, Nintendo will shut down another of its mobile titles: Dragalia Lost, a JRPG-style game that it co-developed with CyGames and launched in late 2018.

Mobile games come and go, and it's not unusual to see even a relatively high-profile title being shut down after a few years if its growth stalls out; but the passing of Dragalia Lost is noteworthy for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it means Nintendo has now shut down two games in the past two years (the previous one being Dr. Mario World) -- a period in which it hasn't launched a single new mobile title.

Far from being a growing part of the company's business, Nintendo's mobile game portfolio is actually shrinking -- the only new Nintendo IP to appear on mobile recently has been Pikmin Bloom, which came about through the company's licensing deal with Pokémon Go creators Niantic.

Dragalia Lost being shuttered is also interesting to some extent because of what the game itself represented: Nintendo's sole foray into creating original mobile IPs, rather than just putting its existing IPs into mobile games. The game was an entirely original creation, with the only aspects of existing Nintendo IP to appear being during crossover events with other games like Fire Emblem Heroes. Nintendo's hand (or rather, its wallet) could instead be seen in the production values of the game, which were remarkably high for a mobile title of this kind.

The success of Switch may have made Nintendo even more risk-averse about reputational issues; the possibility that a mobile side-business could damage the Nintendo brand became less and less palatable

Aside from the obvious value of creating a potential new