Fils-Aime says that Nintendo smartphone games will be ‘different’ to the norm

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The boss of Nintendo America has said warned that gamers shouldn’t be expecting traditional experiences from the company’s firs smartphone titles.

Unfortunately there’s a simplistic mentality out there, that ‘Make a Mario game for smart devices’ is a recipe for printing money,” Reggie Fils-Aim told TIME. And it’s not. It just simply is not. It’s that Kyoto craftsmanship mentality that says whatever we’re going to do, it needs to be a wonderful experience for consumers.

We know that Mario and his ability to run and jump, to transform based on different items, that’s been optimized for a play-control approach that doesn’t exist for smartphones. And so for us, it’s not simply taking existing games and porting them over to smart devices as the answer. Our answer is to create new compelling experiences that leverage what smart devices do best.

In this way, what I would say in terms of our mobile apps is that we will absolutely continue our traditional maxim of developing software that matches the hardware. We have looked at the limitations of software design on mobile platforms, and worked within those parameters. If there’s a 3DS game that requires the full manipulation of joysticks and multiple buttons, that game clearly can’t be exactly replicated on a touch-screen mobile device.

So what we’ve been working at is development of apps that feature Nintendo IP in a meaningful way for mobile platforms. We understand that this may feel different.

And that’s OK. Doing things differently isn’t something we shy away from. And we’re confident we can deliver ‘surprise and delight’ within the profile of mobile devices just as well as we do with dedicated portables or home consoles.”

Late Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata was delivering a similar message as long ago as January 2014, prior to the announcement of Nintendo’s partnership with DeNA.

The company’s first mobile title is a Mii-themed messaging app called Miitomo. Analysts have suggested that future releases will focus on more popular Nintendo IP.