For a brand that made all our dreams come true as kids, Nintendo sure seems content to play the Bowser-style troll these days.
First of all, the company announced that it is finally embracing YouTube videos featuring game footage; only to turn around and reveal that content-makers will have to give much of the ad revenue to Nintendo. Now, Nintendo has said that after years of taking down third-party emulators, it’s giving us an official iOS app at long last.
“Will it allow us to play the company’s classic games?” you may breathlessly ask.
You must be joking!
Instead of letting us get our hands on the Mario and Pokémon games fans so desperately want, the new app will be based around Mii character game avatars, which users can then share as icons on social media. Yay!
On the gaming front, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata says that he is still opposed to porting titles over to tablets and smartphones, since this would negatively impact on Nintendo’s hardware business: a business which has recently resulted in very disappointing financial returns.
As an Apple fan familiar with the company’s late-1990s bellyflop, which prompted everyone to (stupidly) suggest it got out of the hardware game, I realize that calling Nintendo out for sticking to its guns carries a certain irony.
With that said, would there really be any harm in releasing some of the company’s classic SNES-era titles on iOS? If Sega’s example with the Sonic series is anything to go by, there are legions of fans out there who would even help port the titles over.
I can’t believe that Donkey Kong Country 2 is paying too many executive salaries, so why not give loyal fans what they’ve been begging for for years? Sadly, it seems that this won’t be happening in the near future.
For now, you’ll have to make do with the odd emulator — and Cult of Mac’s list of the Nintendo classics we’d sell our non-joystick arm to get an iPhone port of.
Source: Nikkei
Via: IGN
