Nintendo on Tuesday announced a new partnership with DeNA to develop mobile games and a "new multi-device membership service for consumers worldwide," while separately teasing a new game system called "NX."
The deal with Tokyo-based DeNA includes a capital investment component, with Nintendo acquiring 10 percent of DeNA's publicly traded shares for about 22 billion yen ($180 million) and DeNA acquiring 1.24 percent of Nintendo's shares, also for 22 billion yen.
The revelation of a new hardware platform occurred at the same Tokyo press conference where the DeNA news was announced.
Whatever the NX is, it doesn't appear to be a successor to any existing Nintendo game systems but rather a new platform entirely. In a slide published by Engadget, below, Nintendo lists the NX as a "dedicated game system" that is part of Nintendo and DeNA's "new membership service that encompasses smart devices and dedicated video game systems."
Also included in that future membership service are the Nintendo 3DS, Wii U, PCs, smartphones, and tablets.
Read "7 Nintendo Games We Want On Our Phones"
Nintendo and DeNA said they plan to launch the new service in the fall of 2015. Engadget described the future service as a replacement for Club Nintendo, which Nintendo is shuttering over the next few months. It also seems possible that the online membership service will be Nintendo's long-awaited stab at taking on Microsoft's Xbox Live and Sony's PlayStation Network.
On the content creation front, the new partners said they would only be developing and operating "new original games optimized for smart device functionality." That means no "porting games created specifically for the Wii U home console or the Nintendo 3DS portable system," so our dreams of classic Nintendo games for our phones will have to remain deferred.
But Nintendo's stable of beloved video game characters will be available, the companies said.
"Leveraging the strength of Nintendo's intellectual property (IP) and game development skills in combination with DeNA's world-class expertise in mobile games, both companies will develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo's IP, including its iconic game characters, for smart devices," Nintendo and DeNA said in a statement.