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Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

Nintendo Co.’s Japanese shares fell the most since 2011 after the company said its new smartphone game application won’t be released until March, at least three months later than originally promised.

Shares of the maker of Wii consoles and Super Mario games fell 9 percent in Tokyo to 20,945 yen after President Tatsumi Kimishima said a joint project with online games platform operator DeNA Co. won’t debut this calendar year. The new app will be called Miitomo and will be free-to-play at the start. DeNA shares fell 15 percent. Nintendo’s American depositary receipts fell 12 percent at the close Thursday in New York, the most since January 2014.

Nintendo and DeNA are developing original games optimized for smart devices rather than modifying titles already available for the Wii U console and 3DS handheld player. Nintendo ended its resistance to games played on smartphones years after consumers started shifting to the simpler titles and turning away from dedicated game machines.

Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming device. Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg

“Nintendo’s world-famous contents are Mario and Zelda -- instead we saw Miitomo,” said Tomoaki Kawasaki, an analyst at Iwai Cosmo Securities Co. “The expectations were for a game release this year, so it’s a clear negative that the earnings recovery will now come later.”

Before Thursday’s share decline -- the most since July 2011 -- Nintendo had surged by more than 80 percent this year, fueled by late President Satoru Iwata’s announcement in March the company was entering the smartphone game market. DeNA had risen by 69 percent before Thursday, when shares fell the most since May 2014.

Missed Estimates

Nintendo announced the delay after reporting profit that missed analyst estimates for the three months ended September. Net income dropped to 3.2 billion yen ($27 million) and operating profit was 7.8 billion yen, based on first-half numbers reported Wednesday.

Nintendo maintained its forecast for sales of the Wii U to be little changed this fiscal year even though hit titles like Splatoon and Super Mario Maker, which lets players design their own game levels, have failed to spur demand for the console. Both the Wii U and the 3DS have sold less than half of the company’s annual forecast, though the important Christmas shopping season has yet to start.

The company also intends to introduce a new console, the NX. It didn’t release details during Wednesday’s earnings press conference, at which Kimishima also said the alliance with DeNA was “on track.”

My Nintendo

Nintendo’s first app app will feature Miitomo user-made characters. Miitomo will act as users’ avatars when communicating with other players and also will ask questions directly to their owners, such as inquiring about their weekend plans.

“The app itself is already functional,” Kimishima said. “December is the biggest selling season in our traditional business, and we want to do right by our lineup of software and hardware. We thought it best the smartphone application would follow after that.”

The delay’s impact on earnings will be minor, Kimishima said. The company is sticking to its original plan to release five games for smartphones by March 2017.

Nintendo also announced a new service called My Nintendo that works with its own machines and mobile phones. Users can log in through social media or e-mail and share game-saving data between devices.

“We are in the business of searching for explosive opportunities,” said Shigeru Miyamoto, a senior managing director who was involved in creating Mario and Zelda. “Smartphones are part of that business.”

— With assistance by Grace Huang

(Updates stock movement in second paragraph.)