Nintendo And DeNA: What’s NX’t?
Nintendo mostly has stayed out of the mobile gaming arena until now.
At a recent press conference in Tokyo, Nintendo chief executive Satoru Iwata announced the company will team up with DeNA, a major Japanese mobile gaming company, to make smartphone games that feature Nintendo characters.
This alliance is intended to complement Nintendo’s dedicated video game systems business and extend Nintendo’s reach into smart device usage worldwide.
As part of the announcement, Iwata made it clear that Nintendo is not giving up on dedicated gaming systems, and stated that Nintendo is working on a brand-new concept with its new device code-named NX. Iwata did not say if this will be more of a hand-held or home console, and very few details were announced. It’s expected to involve all-new hardware and fresh gameplay concepts. This console is set to launch in the far future, with more information to be released sometime next year.
The NX hardware will tie into a membership service that Nintendo is developing with DeNA (a replacement for Club Nintendo), and will integrate multiple devices including smartphones, tablets, PCs and native Nintendo devices (Wii U, 3DS). This service is set to launch in the fall.
On the business side, and as a part of the long-term commitment, a capital alliance was formed, with Nintendo taking a 10 percent stake in DeNA, and DeNA with 1.24 percent of Nintendo.
Overall, there’s certainly a great deal of speculation going on as to what the NX will really be, but we’ll just have to be patient and wait until next year.
Click Chick’s Mobile App of the Week: Countdown+Event Reminders
Countdown+Event Reminders
ALISON YOUNG SCREENSHOT
Recently I’ve been in search of a good countdown calendar to keep me sane, and I found it — the free Countdown+Event Reminders for iOS.
This app does countdowns to all events, including birthdays, holidays, Facebook events and of course, your own custom days (e.g., trips, weddings, graduations, concerts, etc.).
You can customize it to tell the time in years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and even seconds. As your event comes closer, you can configure your countdown to send you more frequent notifications.
The app seamlessly integrates with your calendar and Facebook, as you can pull events/birthdays from both. This way you almost never forget a birthday.
You can share your count-downs via text message, email, Facebook and Twitter with a snapshot of the countdown background and a link that allows your friends and family to join in your countdown. There is no limit to how many events and reminders you want to track.
Additionally, you can customize the backgrounds and add your own photos to each event.
You can configure the font, color and position of your countdown, as well as select several alarm and sound options to further personalize your count-down experience.
As a gee whiz, you can see how old you really are to the second. This is definitely a funsy app to fiddle with.
clickchick@outlook.com
