Nintendo announces Miitomo smartphone app, Nintendo Account service

Nintendo announced its first smartphone application and a new “Nintendo Account” service during a strategy briefing for investors in Tokyo this morning.

Find the summary of the announcements below, via Nintendo IR.

Nintendo Accounts

We are planning to introduce a new account system that connects all of these Nintendo experiences beyond platforms and operate a new membership service globally.

It is generally said for any account system that more than half of people registering accounts quit halfway through the process. Every one of you must share the same experience of not being able to recall your account name or password when trying to log in.

Accordingly, we have focused on making the new account easy to create or easy to sign up as well as easy to use, namely, it is harder for members to forget about it.

Specifically, for our new account, you can log in with your Facebook, Google or Twitter account. Alternatively, you can log in with a combination of your email address and your password. Of course, you can continue using your Nintendo Network ID as well.

The name of this new account system is “Nintendo Account.”

With Nintendo Account as the basis, we will provide new membership services.

Firstly, on Nintendo’s official website, you will be able to purchase digital download software for Wii U and Nintendo 3DS.

When you find an interesting title after seeing articles or videos introducing new games through your PC or smart device, you can buy it on the spot, and the purchased software will be automatically downloaded to your Wii U or Nintendo 3DS.

Also, in accordance with each member’s profile, purchase records and play records, we will send notices and gifts.

For example, an Animal Crossing character called Isabel may send some information or a present to those who are playing with that game, Mario Kart players may receive a notice about add-on content and we may also send a message that enables the recipient to purchase some software at an attractive price point on his or her birthday.

We will start a new point program as well, which not only involves Nintendo’s dedicated game systems but also smart devices.

With the Club Nintendo membership service that was ended on September 30, 2015, you earned points when you purchased software. With this new point program, you can earn points by playing games as well.

Whether you have played the software for dedicated game systems or our applications for smart devices, you can earn points that can then be used on our dedicated game systems or on smart devices.

Naturally, you can also earn points by purchasing software.

With the new points, you can obtain digital add-on content, which will make the game you are playing even more fun, original merchandise or a coupon, which can be used as a discount for new software.

In terms of creating connections among the members, members can make friends with those who enjoy playing games together by establishing “Friend” relationships.

As we place importance on the security of our consumers, a Friend relationship can be established only between two people who know each other and have consented to the relationship. This Friend relationship can be used for software for dedicated game systems and for our smart device applications.

If I can discuss our plans for the future, the service will eventually allow game save data, such as character data, to be stored in our cloud system so that you can use them both for the software for dedicated game systems and for our smart device applications.

This is also a plan for the future, but we are going to provide our membership service benefits in other real-life facilities such as theme parks, movie theaters and retail outlets.

My Nintendo

The name of our new membership service is “My Nintendo.”

My Nintendo will work as a bridge between dedicated game systems and smart devices.

Now, I would like to introduce you to a free-to-start type communication application for smart devices, namely, our smart device application, which can be started for free and will push forward the My Nintendo membership service.

Miitomo (coming March 2016 for smartphones)

Miitomo is a communication application that uses Mii characters resembling you. First, you create your own Mii.

Your Mii starts a conversation with you.

Your answer is automatically shared among talktative Mii.

A new style of friendly conversation starter.

You might see a side of your Friends you didn’t know about.

You thought you knew your Friends well, but they have hobbies and thoughts and experiences that you hear from Mii for the first time. You might even find an unexpected common interest.

Miitomo: Unexpected relationships created by friendly conversation starters.

The people you will be able to communicate with are limited to your friends whom you have registered as Friends. In this way, instead of the users proactively sending their own messages, Miitomo has a unique characteristic that can be called “friendly communication starters” as your Mii will automatically dispatch the answers you gave to certain questions to your friends.

These “friendly communication starters” have an advantage that even the people who are less willing to send messages can easily participate. Another unique characteristic of Miitomo is that you may be able to find out unknown aspects about your friends or unexpected commonalities you share with your friend because Miitomo may pick up the topics that you usually do not discuss but would be willing to answer if asked.

What we would like to realize is, through such communication, you will be able to deepen friendly relationships and have more people with whom you can play games.

Both My Nintendo and Miitomo will be available in March 2016.

For reference, more than 200 million Mii characters have been created on our platforms, which means that many people around the world understand the appeal of Mii.