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Nintendo, DeNA Establish Joint Venture Company
posted on by Adriana Hazra
Nintendo announced on Tuesday that it is partnering with game company DeNA to establish a joint venture company
that will be a specified subsidiary of Nintendo named "Nintendo Systems Co., Ltd." The companies will establish the joint venture on April 3.
The subsidiary's primary objective is "Research and development, as well as operations to strengthen the digitalization of Nintendo's business, in addition to the creation of value-added services." Tetsuya Sasaki will take up the role of representative director and president of the joint venture company. Nintendo will own 80% of the company while DeNA will own 20%. Nintendo will appoint a few officers and employees of the company as directors of Nintendo Systems.
In 2015, Nintendo partnered with DeNA to lend its intellectual property for the creation and launch of "approximately" five smartphone titles by March 2017. Through that partnership, Nintendo and DeNA have released the Super Mario Run, Miitomo, Fire Emblem Heroes, and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp games. Service for Miitomo ended in May 2018.
Nintendo planned and developed the Mario Kart Tour application while DeNA has been responsible for the backend, such as servers, infrastructure, and analysis. The game launched in September 2019 after a delay.
DeNA launched the Pokémon Masters smartphone game in August 2019 for iOS and Android devices. The game changed its title to Pokémon Masters EX.
