'Miitomo' game release date, news & update: Nintendo announces new free-to-play smartphone game

The newest Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima announced the details of "Miitomo" during the company's second quarter investment meeting today. The Wall Street Journal Japan held a live blog during the company's meeting today. It was revealed that "Miitomo" will be free-to-play with in-game bonuses that people can pay money for.

According to 9 to 5 Mac, "Miitomo" is a mobile game that allows players to create avatars or "Mii" where it can interact with other players. This game is meant to build communication among friends and help "encourage people" to "sharing things about themselves."

"You might dig up some previously-buried topics of conversation, learn about a surprising side of your friend you've never seen before, find things you never knew you had in common," Kimishima said in the meeting today in Tokyo, as reported by Wired. The outlet adds that the game's launch was moved to March 2016 so they can properly market it before officially launching it.

Mr. Kishima defended the delay of the launching of the game as the remaining months of the year is a supposed peak season for game sales.

"The last two months of the year is traditionally our peak sales season. By doing it like this, we can introduce our new applications after the holiday season is over," Kimishima said during the meeting.

It is noted that Nintendo's move on mobile gaming is the company's initiative to adapt to the gaming landscape where everything is almost run by smarpthones.

"[It is] unbelievable that it has taken so long for Nintendo to take action. They had to see Apple, Google, King and SuperCell surpass them in terms of 2014 game revenues to take action towards mobile," video game analyst Peter Warman told International Business Times.

Nintendo's partnership with Tokyo Internet firm DeNA was announced earlier this year in March. The collaboration was intended to bridge Nintendo's gap over the mobile gaming industry.

"Both companies will develop and operate new game apps based on Nintendo's [intellectual property], including its iconic game characters, for smart devices," DeNA said in a statement at that time, via Los Angeles Times. "The alliance is intended to complement Nintendo's dedicated video game systems business and extend Nintendo's reach into the vast market of smart-device users worldwide."

During the meeting, Kimishima also announced that Nintendo will be releasing 5 smartphone games by March 2017 and that any of the company's popular and existing franchises may be coming with a smartphone version, Wired reports.