Smartphone Apps for Nintendo Wii U?

Despite all efforts and good intentions  Nintendo’s Wii U console was not as successful as expected. This was partly blamed on the rather slim library of games for this platform, so the Japanese company is planning to solve this issue by making the console compatible with smartphone applications and games.

The Japan Times reported recently that Nintendo is actively helping smartphone manufacturers to adapt their applications to Wii U console requirements. According to company sources, the Japanese game manufacturer is already offering application developers professional-use, high level conversion software in order to come up with smartphone games playable on Wii U.

Nintendo is reportedly hoping that the move, coordinated with this year’s Wii U console updates and new releases, will help boost sales and retain a significant market portion in the face of tough competition from Microsoft and Sony, which will both launch their next generation consoles in the following months.

As a comparison, Nintendo has sold only 121,000 Wii U units on the American market in the first couple of months of the year, while Microsoft’s Xbox sold over 300,000 in February alone. The handheld 3DS gaming system brought some profit to the Japanese videogame company, but not enough to make it up for the Wii U letdown.

The company is faring well however when it comes to downloadable games and its digital sales more than doubled in the last year. So it actually makes a lot of sense that Nintendo would be interested in exploring the smartphone app market in order to offer more content to its console users.

It is yet unclear how Nintendo wants to make the Wii U console compatible with smartphone apps, technically speaking. Most smartphone games are developed for multi touchscreens and the Wii U gamepad display does not support this feature. Although Nintendo has not officially confirmed or denied the reports, it is safe to assume that they have found a way to make this happen. According to the Japan Times, Nintendo is also developing its own software. No other details are available at this point.

[Image via Wiiugo]