Nintendo’s about to unveil its first smartphone game. Too little, too late?

Over the past decade, Japanese gaming company Nintendo has often played the odd man out. When the world’s other major console manufacturers doubled-down on graphics and realism, Nintendo moved towards casual fun and motion controls with the Wii. It was a move that was widely mocked by hardcore gamers, but in the end that didn’t matter. The Wii found a broader casual audience, and outsold the more “hardcore” PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

Similarly, when many other gaming companies embraced the rise of mobile gaming, Nintendo stayed aloof. This approach baffled observers, because on its face, it seems like a no-brainer. Smartphone games tend to be less graphically intensive, more casual, and often include accelerometer motion controls – that’s all right in Nintendo’s wheelhouse. But about a decade after mobile gaming really started to take off, here we are, still without a single Nintendo game for the smartphone.

That’s all destined to change soon, though. Earlier this year, Nintendo invested in and partnered with Japanese mobile gaming giant DeNA, and announced a plan to release five mobile games by early 2017. The first, which Nintendo has promised is coming before year’s end, will be unveiled today.

Too little, too late?

2015 seems very late to be getting into the mobile gaming business. If it were any other company, I’d say it was too late, and that competitors were too far ahead. But this is Nintendo we’re talking about. It’s a company that’s uniquely poised to make an absolute killing off of mobile games, even when it’s entering the market at this ridiculously late date. Here’s why:

Mobile-ready franchises. Nintendo’s best-selling game franchises are pretty much all perfect for mobile platforms. Simple platformers like the Mario games work well with a mobile device’s limited controls. Casual racers like Mario Kart excel when controlled via a smartphone’s accelerometer. Turn-based RPGs like Pokemon also fit perfectly on the smartphone platform. All three of those are Nintendo console franchises that have sold more than 100 million games, so Nintendo has a lot of star power it can bring to bear on mobile.

All of these games work well in the short windows that mobile gamers often have to get their fun in, too. You can jump through a Mario level or two in minutes, squeeze in a Mario Kart race or two on the train, or fight through a Pokemon battle during the break between classes at school. Many of the world’s most popular gaming franchises simply don’t work that way – a Grand Theft Auto mission can take half an hour or even longer – but Nintendo’s top franchises are all easily broken up into bite-size playable chunks. They’re perfect for mobile.

You know you love Mario Kart.

Nostalgia. Many of today’s mobile users, both in Japan and across the world, are people who grew up playing games on the Nintendo and Super Nintendo (SNES) consoles. Even in today’s super-saturated mobile gaming market, Nintendo can stand out by giving them games that let them play in the game worlds they loved as kids, and see the characters they remember from those stories.

In fact, Nintendo could probably make a killing just by porting classic SNES games onto smartphones if it was so inclined. But this nostalgic advantage will extend to new games, too. A new Mario Kart mobile game is going to have far more appeal than any of the hundreds of mobile kart-racing games on the market already simply because many smartphone users already know and love the characters and tracks from previous Mario Kart games.

Feedback loop. Unlike mobile-only developers, Nintendo has a lot of other products out there that might drive users to its mobile games, and its mobile games might similarly drive users to purchase those other products. For example, playing Pokemon on your phone might make you want to pick up a Nintendo Wii U console so you can play it on the big screen, too. And playing Mario Kart 8 with your friends on the couch might inspire you to pick up the Mario Kart mobile app so that you can battle it out while you’re on the go, too. Nintendo’s characters are everywhere, and lots of things might give you the impulse to pick up a Nintendo mobile game.

In short: it’s not too late for Nintendo to do mobile. In fact, I think this may prove to be one of the most profitable decisions the company has ever made.

Would you buy a mobile Mario Kart game?