Just under two years ago, Nintendo announced a partnership with DeNA to bring their games to mobile devices. It was a huge deal for two reasons. First, Nintendo would be developing games for non-Nintendo hardware for the first time since the 1980s. Second, they would be entering a sector of the games industry that they had very little experience in, one that presents a very different challenge from what they might be used to. Depending on who you asked in the wake of that announcement, Nintendo was either going to completely change the mobile market, or totally sell out their cherished brands to the free-to-play mobile devil.
Their first release ended up not really going in either direction. Miitomo [Free] was a quirky social networking app featuring Nintendo's well-known Mii avatar characters. It was free to download and use, with some IAP for tickets that could be used to try to win cosmetic items for your avatar. It was also imminently Nintendo, with all the benefits and drawbacks that implies. For everything it lacked in terms of ease-of-use and common sense features, it almost made up for with its charm and polish. Almost. Miitomo did quite well in the beginning, and for what it was, it did okay overall, but it dropped off fast. It was not a product well-suited for mobile audiences who, even without downloading a single other app, already had several ways of communicating with their friends, and with fewer limitations at that.
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