Nintendo Co. on Thursday pushed back the much-anticipated launch of its video game service for smartphones by a few months to March 2016, disappointing gaming fans as well as investors, who drove its shares down by more than 10 percent.
Under a strategy announced by its previous chief executive, who died of cancer earlier this year, Nintendo had said it would introduce its first smartphone games by the end of 2015. Fans and investors had hoped that would include its best-selling Mario video game franchise in the first lineup.
Shares in the maker of Wii consoles and Super Mario games fell as much as 13 percent to ¥20,085 in Tokyo after President Tatsumi Kimishima said a joint project with online games platform operator DeNA Co. will not debut this calendar year. The new app will be called Miitomo and will be free to play at the start.