Nintendo's First Few Mobile Games will be Free to Play

So, Nintendo has recently started investing in developing for mobile games, and has already shown some of their plans--Pokemon Go, an attempt to bring Pokemon into the real world with VR, and Miitomo, a mii-focused chat system where you can spend real money to buy cosmetics for your Mii avatar. But there has to be more to it than that, and, rest assured, Nintendo is telling us there is: but while we might not be getting much in the way of details, Nintendo is comfortable sharing something about their long-term game plan.

Or, at least, the Wall Street Journal is, if they’re any authority on the news (here’s a hint--they are).

According to them, Miitomo will be the first of up to five mobile games(?) Nintendo plans to release before March 2017, and interesting, all five of them are, apparently, going to be free-to-play. This runs counter to Nintendo’s previous statements, where they assured people that Miitomo was something of an exception and the majority of their mobile titles would be pay-to-download, but hey--five can still be a minority if there are enough in the majority. And there might be. It’s a little early to make that call.

The Wall Street Journal also stated that all of these smartphone games would have some kind of cross-functionality with 3DS/Wii U/NX, as their primary purpose is still to encourage people to purchase and play Nintendo’s main offerings. If nothing else, this last bit is encouraging--Nintendo isn’t going to abandon us gamers chasing the mobile rainbow. At least, not anytime soon.

Still.

It’s a little early to make that call.