Pokémon Go is already getting people outside, but the next update could give the app a bigger focus on health and fitness, by encouraging you to take your Pokémon for a walk.

Based on information data mined from the app it seems you'll soon be able to walk a 'Buddy Pokémon' and be rewarded with candy for it.

Candy is required to evolve your critters. At the moment it can be a grind to get, as currently you mostly collect it by catching duplicates of the Pokémon you want to evolve. But with only three candy received for each catch and sometimes hundreds needed for an evolution this process can take a long time, especially with rarer Pokémon.

Gotta walk 'em all

Being able to just take your favorite pocket monster out on a walk to get candy instead could be faster, more fun and feel more like you're training your companion up, which is an aspect of Pokémon that arguably hasn't translated to Pokémon Go very well.

Of course this update will also get people walking more, as previously the only real push the app gave to get you moving was to hatch eggs.

Based on the data mine it seems candy is the main reward for walking your Pokémon (other than your own health and fitness), but it's easy to imagine that stat boosts could also be granted – or that the stats of lazy Pokémon could decline.

The information, which was mined by AeonLucid's PogoProtos and covered by Pokémon Go Hub, suggests that you'll only be able to walk one Pokémon at a time and that the look of the Pokémon on screen can be 'medium size', 'big size', 'flying next to you' or 'on your shoulder'.

What's not yet known is how much candy you'll receive and whether there's a daily limit, but we should find out soon, as with all the code already present the new feature could arrive in next week's update.

• Just getting started? Check out our Pokémon Go beginner's guide

Pokemon Go

For years, gamers have yearned for a full blown, online Pokémon multiplayer game. It might sound like a realisable dream but it's clear that Nintendo and the Pokémon Company would prefer to keep their Pocket Monsters, well, in our pockets for now.

Pokémon Go finds an interesting middle ground, using our smartphones to bring Pokémon into the real world through the power of maps and the magic of augmented reality.

To make Go the Pokémon Company brought in Niantic, the company responsible for mobile augmented reality multiplayer hit Ingress, and lead by Google Maps creator John Hanke. In Ingress, players join teams and fight for control of "portals" found at landmarks, monuments, and other real-world points of cultural significance.

Over the three years the game has been live, Niantic has relied on users to flag up more and more of these points of interest, particularly in more rural locations, which the developers have then fed into the game. The number of portals has grown from tens of thousands to millions, and it's this trove of data that Pokémon Go is built upon.

To catch them is my real test

Unlike Ingress, which can be overwhelming to a new player landing in the middle of a global turf war, Pokémon Go is much better at easing in newbies. "You'll be discovering Pokémon in minutes," Niantic's John Hanke promises me when I visit the Pokémon Company to try the game's beta.

Pokémon Go wants you to discover and catch wild Pokémon with your smartphone while out in the real world, bringing the dream of being a real Pokémon trainer the closest to reality as it will probably ever be. The game draws on Google Maps' data to make Pokémon show up at locations like your local park, on the beach, or in a forest. Don't be surprised if you even get ambushed in your back garden.

But all of the action takes place on your smartphone screen, and while the game pulls some neat tricks with the camera it's possible to play without it.

For my demo I was taken to Chiswick House gardens, which was filled with Pokémon, Poke Stops (where you can purchase items), and even a couple of gyms (which you can capture and battle in - more on that later).

As I roamed the gardens, circular patches highlighted where wild Pokémon could be hiding, and in a place like Chiswick gardens they weren't in short supply. One of the cleverest things about Go is the way it distributes Pokémon to locations you'd expect to find them in the traditional games: grass Pokémon will appear in parks; water types like Krabby can be seen near lakes and beaches; and rock-type Pokémon like Geodude will huddle in caves and other rocky terrains.

When a Pokémon icon appears on one of these patches you can try to catch it by tapping on it. It took less than a minute before a wild Abra appeared in my demo - obviously I wanted to bag it.

This is where the augmented reality element of Go comes in, using the camera to superimpose the Pokémon in the real world. It's a neat idea that helps create the facade of being on a Pokémon adventure, although it wasn't always executed elegantly during my demo - there were times where the Pokémon hovered awkwardly in mid-air.

However, I should stress that this isn't the final game, and some of the AR bugs might be ironed out before launch. Alternatively you can choose to have the Pokémon appear on a generic colored background instead, but I think most people will prefer the blending of virtual and real worlds.

Capturing a Pokémon is done by flinging Poke Balls at it on the touchscreen. The trick, I found, was to just throw it as hard as I could, but even then there's no guarantee of ensnaring your monster. Poké fans are all too familiar with those tense few seconds between snagging a Pokémon and waiting for your prize to stop struggling and resign itself to captivity. Once it's in, it's yours; if you're unsuccessful then you can keep trying - unless it runs away first.

More powerful Poké Balls will increase your chance of capturing Pokémon, and can be bought at the Poké Stops, which show up at points of interest - blue plaques, memorials etc. This is where you can also buy items like lure patches, which attract Pokémon to you, and eggs, which will hatch after you've walked a certain distance. Microtransactions will be included, but it's not yet clear how these will work.

Hanke won't tell me exactly how many Pokémon will be in the game at launch ("We think part of the fun of the game is going to be people trying to figure that out") but it's over 100, and old-school fans will be delighted to know they've all been taken from the original 150 set. However Hanke hints that more will come after launch.

"There are a lot of Pokémon in the Pokémon universe, and there will be some of those that come in day one and there may be more in the future."

Different Pokémon also have different rarities, and Hanke believes there's potential to do some interesting things with distributing more unique monsters in the future.

"Pokémon in the past has done really interesting things with the trading card game in terms of really rare Pokémon being available in certain places at certain times," he says. "There's some inspiration there we can draw on.

Now, we're in a park in the middle of London - Pokémon are in abundance, Poké Stops frequent, and there's a gym just a few meters away - but what about gamers who aren't in bustling metropolises?

"We want it to work in a rural village as well as central London," says Hanke. "Or in southern India or Thailand or the Philippines. But by allowing players to submit the things they find interesting it naturally allows us to fill in in areas where people were intrigued by playing this type of game.

"So if someone booted up this game in some rural town in the Philippines and there weren't any portals, they could go find an old church or other artistic thing and submit it."

A member of the Pokémon team tells me a funny story about how one company exec recently took a holiday to a Mediterranean Island to discover a gym there was already captured by someone else.

The game is currently only in beta in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and (as of May 25) the US, so the culprit was clearly another holiday goer. It was an interesting example of how much reach this game will have.

To train them is my cause

Gyms are one of Go's most interesting features, and another that draws on the Ingress's turf-control gameplay. Like Poké Stops, gyms appear at notable landmarks around the world and are differentiated by color: red, yellow and blue (see what they did there?).

If you stumble upon an empty gym you can simply claim it for your own team, but if it belongs to a rival color then you'll have to defeat the Pokémon inside using your own monsters. Or, if you find that already belongs your team you can strengthen it by adding one of your own Pokémon to it.

Pokémon have different levels of strength, which is indicated by what's called CP. As you progress through the game your trainer will earn experience points and level up - the more experience you have the higher the CP of the Pokémon you'll encounter.

You can also evolve Pokémon, but rather than doing this by training them up you use what are called "evolution shards", which are obtained by capturing several of the same Pokémon. It's a bit of a grind but an approach that's perhaps better suited to the platform.

Also different in Go is the battling mechanic, which is extremely basic and consists of two elements: tapping on the enemy Pokémon to hit it enough until its health bar depletes; and swiping left and right to avoid its attacks on you. Higher level Pokémon will be stronger and the game does account for type advantage - water is stronger against fire, fire trounces grass - but that's about as strategic as it gets.

It's a much more basic battle system than what Pokémon fans are used to, but one that obviously lends itself better for quick play. In Hanke's own words, "We're not trying to recreate the 3DS experience, we're trying to build something different."

While I appreciate that emulating a traditional Pokémon battling system probably wouldn't work here, I feel that the battle feature could easily be improved while remaining accessible and mobile-friendly. I hope it does, because right now I see gyms as being where the game's real longevity lies.

You teach me and I'll teach you

In March Pokémon Go went into public beta in Japan and it has since rolled out to a handful of other countries. Players are learning how Go will work, and in turn Niantic has learned what still needs polishing.

"One of the interesting things about a game like this is that the distribution of players, and the distribution of players to the teams, is out of our control," says Hanke when I ask about how the beta has helped them improve the game.

"So we have to anticipate the player density. In a big city like London, in a very popular park, you're obviously going to have a higher level of foot traffic with a higher concentration of players than you'd have in a rural area. But the game has to be tuned so it works in both cases.

"Getting that balance right and making sure it works in all places for all types of players is a focus of the beta test."

Ultimately, there are three main strands from Ingress which Pokémon Go draws on: discovery, which is catching wild Pokémon and finding points of interest; social interactions, which is about giving players the incentive to capture and improve gyms; and movement. Pokémon Go might be a video game, but it wants players to get out into the real world.

"You have to move in Pokémon Go to hatch your egg. That's a very direct learning from Ingress," says Hanke.

Niantic has found other interesting ways to encourage movement and discovery, such as a wristband that will be sold separately pair with your phone. A small vibration will alert the wearer that a wild Pokémon is nearby, and they can even use a small button on the device to try to catch the Pokémon - all without taking their phone out of their pocket.

The game's battery saving feature, meanwhile, uses the phone's gyroscope to detect when you're not holding your phone up. This means players don't have to walk around with their eyes glued to their phone. And yet, says Hanke, "It's a way to experience the game more frequently".

Pokémon Go will launch later this year, but Hanke won't say if there will be more betas before then.

While the demo gave me a good idea of how Go will play, it's impossible to say whether the final product will flourish into the game we all hope it will be. I say this because my brief experience with the game was isolated, bar from a few other players from the Pokémon Company, and so I look forward to seeing how the social side of the game unravels when millions of others get stuck in.

Hardcore series fans might not find the depth they've always dreamed of from a Pokémon MMO, but Go is a very different beast to the traditional games. It's started from the smartphone and built from there, rather than trying to cram the existing games into a new platform.

My biggest hope is that the Go's longevity won't be stifled by a lack of meaningful progression. I suspect, given its history with Ingress, Niantic has already thought about this - and I hope that we'll have reasons to keep jumping back into Pokémon Go long after it launches.

What's very encouraging is how much work is being done to ensure as many people as can pick up and enjoy the game from day one, regardless of where in the world they live.

"We're striving to make it complete and playable everywhere," says Hanke, "and if we hear it's not we'll strive to do something about it.

"But we feel pretty good about it."

Pokémon Go, the hotly anticipated augmented reality mobile game, is now ready for testers in the US.

Niantic Labs, a game maker that used to be a part of Google, announced today that Pokémon Go is available to download for those who signed up to be testers.

The company is also currently testing the game in Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Pokémon Go lets players use their phones to catch Pokémon in the "real world" using augmented reality technology. The game places digital representations of Pokémon IRL for you to collect and add to your Pokedex.

Specific types of Pokémon can only be found in specific areas. For example, water-type Pokémon will show up near bodies of water. Hopefully you won't have to climb through a forest to find Venusaur, which Niantic Labs says no beta tester has found yet.

To add a bit of intrigue to the game, Niantic Labs also announced that players can collect Pokémon Eggs. "Trainers will get a good workout as you must walk a preset distance in order to hatch the Egg and find out what Pokémon will emerge. Incubators are provided to help with this process," says the development team.

Beyond simply finding and catching Pokémon, Pokémon Go lets players join a team and battle one another. There are Gyms in the game, just like the original Gameboy version, and players can battle and claim Gyms from each other.

If the gameplay sounds familiar, that's because Niantic Labs also made Ingress, a popular location-based mobile game where players fight to control real-world territories.

Pokémon Go is expected to launch some time this summer for Android and iOS.

Miitomo

These are changing times for Nintendo, a company forging some interesting new paths while holding onto a rich legacy. These new paths include theme parks, toys, an upcoming new console in the Nintendo NX, and yes, finally, smartphone apps.

Its first app, Miitomo, will be rolling out of Japan and to the rest of the world on March 31, marking a significant milestone for the company. For it, Nintendo has partnered with Japanese mobile company DeNA, and there are more apps to come – four more between now and March 2017.

So what is Miitomo? Not easy to summate in a single sentence, that's what. It's gaming meets social networking meets the bizarre. It's the type of app you'll probably jump into for a few minutes each day, but while you're there you'll have a lot of fun – and might even learn a thing or two.

It's "an app that makes you discover things you might not otherwise know about your friends," says a Nintendo spokesperson during our hands-on preview. "This is a Nintendo take on communication."

Rather than simply putting Mario on mobile, Nintendo has instead made its smartphone debut with its Mii avatars – now a staple of both the company's handheld and home consoles – to create something more akin to a chat app than a game. It certainly has a few gameplay elements thrown in, but Miitomo feels like a close imitation of Tomodachi Life with more of an emphasis on fun conversation.

So, think Tomodachi Life meets Kik. Got that? Excellent. Now, onto how it actually all works.

Creating a character

Anyone who's made a Mii character on the Wii, Wii U or 3DS will be familiar with Miitomo's character creator. If you've played Tomodachi Life, then it's almost identical.

Here, you'll mold your avatar, altering its face, hair, personality, and even voice. That last one is important, because your character is going to be doing a lot of jabbering. Nintendo boasts that it now has over 9,000 different animations which your Mii will make use of when it speaks.

Should you already have a Mii you're already proud of, you can carry it over to Miitomo by scanning a QR code.

Alternatively, if you'd like to make a new Mii in your own image, Miitomo will snap your photo and craft an avatar that it thinks most closely resembles you. Many of the ones it spat out for me were, err, interesting, but you can continue to poke and prod to perfection once you've settled on one that most closely resembles yourself.

Once you're done with that, the real fun begins.

Answer me this

Miitomo is heavily focused on questions and answers. You answer questions, your friends answer questions, everybody laughs at the silly answers. Sometimes, you might learn something interesting, such as a friend's secret celebrity crush or their honest opinion on chili dogs.

I know I've already made the comparisons with Tomodachi Life, but Miitomo actually has an advantage over Tomodachi in that players don't need Nintendo hardware to play with one another – just a smartphone. Miitomo runs across iOS and Android, but Nintendo tells me that it has no plans for a Windows Phone version. Sorry.

Nintendo's friend-adding system has traditionally been quite controlled, and in Miitomo that's no different. Rather than adding people by username, Miitomo only lets you add people you're already connected to on Facebook and Twitter – you must both be following one another.

If only Nintendo dropped Friend Codes for this.

Alternatively, you can add friends that are nearby via a system where you both tap an identical shape. It's a simple system that circumvents most risks of unwanted adds, but at the end of the day it all feels a tad limiting.

Granted, most of my friends have Facebook, but if you know anyone who's off the social network radar (and lives far from you) then it's a shame there's no simple, username-based way of adding them.

Once you are friends, however, Nintendo won't restrict or censor content. You can report something if you think it's offensive, but otherwise you're free to post what you like.

Once your character is created, Miitomo will ask you a set of easygoing questions about yourself, such as your favorite food or film. Some do get a little weird and, occasionally, deep, but don't expect to be quizzed on any pressing international affairs.

Your friends will then be able to see your answers, comment on them or "like" them, and in turn you'll be able to do the same with them. If you want, you can choose to hide your answers, which others will have to "unlock" by paying in candies.

What you won't be able to do is open any instant messaging dialogue with friends; communication is strictly limited to Q&As.

Answering questions won't just reveal facts about your friends, but will also unlock coins which can be spent on clothes and other items. Your character can also rank up in Popularity level and Style level.

Popularity is increased, naturally, by making more friends and achieving certain social-focused goals, while you up your Style game by purchasing new outfits. Many of these outfits can be purchased from the shop, where items will change daily.

However, if you see someone wearing something you particularly like, the game will let you purchase that item. Yes, that includes a hotdog outfit if you're so inclined.

I was so inclined.

Shop till you drop

The most "game-like" element of Miitomo is definitely Miitomo Drop, a pinball-style mini-game in which you drop a Mii down the table and hope you land on a neat prize.

The best prizes will be new accessories, but there are also candies to collect. Remember, while they might not look like much, these will let you unlock hidden answers to your friends' questions. The truth will reveal itself as you finally discover which of the Spice Girls was really your gran's favorite.

But personally, I had more fun in Miifoto, the app's toybox for making up some funny, often bizarre, photos.

In Miifoto you take your Mii – and your friends' Miis if you like/have friends – and make them pose in an assortment of ways for the perfect shot. You can also throw in banners, captions, word bubbles fake mustaches – tons of extra details so you can create a masterpiece like this...

You can also pull in photos from your camera roll, which makes Miifoto even more enjoyable. All in all, it's incredibly customizable, letting you change the positions and sizes of Miis and other icons down with great detail, before pushing them out on social media. I can see Miitomo users spending a lot of time in this part of the app.

In-app payments

Miitomo is free to download, but it does include micro-transactions, which you'll use to buy clothing and other accessories for your Mii. During our play with Miitomo, Nintendo emphasized that the app can be enjoyed without spending a single penny, and so far it doesn't feel like it holds you back massively for not cashing out.

Coins are earned by answering questions, but you'll get a pretty big payout at the start, and more for daily login bonuses. Linking Miitomo to your My Nintendo account will also unlock added rewards.

That said, if you don't have many friends also using Miitomo, you'll find yourself strapped for cash more quickly, especially if you play a lot of Mii Drop – 500 coins a go. While Nintendo hasn't fully confirmed its prices outside of Japan, it looks like you'll pay $0.99/£79p for around 1,000 coins . (This might change before launch, according to Nintendo, but if it does I can't see it being dramatically different.)

I've only had a couple of hours with Miitomo, but so far there's a lot of stuff I love. I just can't help but feel like there was more potential here.

I know that Nintendo has traditionally had a locked-down approach to online interactions, but I'd have loved to see a way to meet new people in Miitomo. Perhaps an area where users could join different communities?

But yes, I appreciate all the prickly problems that something like that would bring. And all that aside, I still think Miitomo is a solid effort from Nintendo: it proves that it's taking its move into mobile in a careful, considered way.

After the initial hype dies down, I can't see anyone but the most hardcore Nintendo-heads spending more than half an hour in the app each day. That might be enough for now – as I said, Nintendo has more to come – and there's a lot on offer for an app that can be enjoyed for free.

This is an exciting year for Nintendo, and Miitomo is the starting pistol for what's to come. A starting pistol in a hotdog costume donning a fake mustache.

• The iPhone SE should play this game just fine

Just off the back of its quarterly financials, Nintendo has announced how we'll be able to get our hands on its first smartphone and tablet app, Miitomo.

Miitomo will launch in March for iOS and Android, but you'll be able to pre-register from February 2016.

While Nintendo has already spoken about the app, many of the details remain unclear. It describes Miitomo not as a game but a "social experience" in which users can interact with their friends by asking questions (such as "Do you believe in aliens?") and then using the answers for… something. We're still not sure how it's all going to work, but it looks a lot like 3DS title Tomodachi Life.

Players in the game will be represented as Mii characters (Miitomo actually means "Mii friends"), which anyone who's ever played a Wii or Wii U will be familiar with.

Rewards

To pre-register for Miitomo you'll have to create a Nintendo Account, which you'll be able to do from February 17 using a Nintendo Network ID, social network account or simply an email address.

Additionally, Nintendo announced that its My Nintendo rewards program will be launch alongside Miitomo, and will interact with the app.

My Nintendo, which replaces Club Nintendo , is described as "more comprehensive" than a traditional rewards programs. Points are split into Gold and Platinum. You'll get Platinum points for logging into your My Nintendo account, while Gold points will be awarded for buying Nintendo consoles and games.

Plus, subscribers will get a Miitomo bonus if they create a Nintendo Account between February 17 and the launch of Miitomo.

Finally, Nintendo reiterated that it will be pushing out five smartphone/tablet apps before March 2017. That aside, this year is set to be huge for Nintendo, with the company set to announce (and maybe launch) its new console, currently codenamed the NX.

• The best news from Nintendo's financials? Lots of people are playing Splatoon

Nintendo, not wanting to be left out of the Christmas festivities, brought one of Mario's greatest outings to the Wii U.

Super Mario Galaxy is out now on the Virtual Console for $19.99 (approx. £13/AU$27). The downloadable version requires a Wii Remote and Nunchuck controller to play just like the original Wii version, so make sure you have those on hand before you party like it's 2007.

The release of Nintendo's critically-acclaimed platformer fills in a gap left on the Wii U after the release of its successor, Super Mario Galaxy 2, made its way to the Virtual Console almost a year ago.

Not only is one of the portly plumber's best games back for a new audience, but the Christmas Eve release also ensures a last-minute gift idea for the Nintendo devout in your life.

• Thinking of picking up a Wii U this holiday? Check out our review!

In what is likely to be disappointing news for some gamers and brilliant news for all investors, it appears that Nintendo's forthcoming mobile titles will all be "free to play", meaning that they will all contain some form of micropayments.

The news was first broken by the Wall Street Journal's Takashi Mochizuki and picked up by NintendoLife, citing the chief executive of DeNA, the company that Nintendo has partnered with the develop mobile games, as confirming the decision.

Not much is known about exactly what Nintendo is cooking up for mobile, though a few weeks ago we did learn about the game, Miitomo, which will be based around Nintendo's Mii avatars.

Kerching

In the gaming community, free-to-play is broadly viewed unfavourably because of the theoretical ability of companies to rinse players of their cash if they want to be able to play the game to its fullest extent. While new for Nintendo, the practice is now pretty much the default option for mobile games.

One source of relief might be the attitude shown by Nintendo in Pokémon Shuffle, one of the company's first mobile releases. In the game - which is essentially Candy Crush mashed up with Pokémon - although micropayments are available to help players advance, the game is at pains to remind the player that they don't need to spend money to play the game.

It also isn't entirely clear how this news will impact forthcoming augmented reality title Pokémon Go, which is being developed by Google start-up Niantec.

• Does this make you worried about Nintendo's plans? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Bethesda's latest addition to its growing list of Fallout 4 merchandise is a set of emojis that will let you express your excitement for the upcoming game/exhaustion with the endless promotions.

Available on Android and iOS for no money at all, the Fallout 4 C.H.A.T. which stands for Vault-Tec Communications Hub And Transmitter, is a free emoji keyboard.

There are big letters, icons of the pose-loving Vault Boy, and plenty of gifs to bombard your friends with. You do have to paste each emoji into the message area, making it a little clunky to use, but some of the animations are pretty cool. And hey, it's Fallout. We all love Fallout, right?

The Fallout C.H.A.T emoji keyboard is available on the App Store and Google Play now.

• We take a real-life Pip Boy for a walk in the park
• Fallout 4 gameplay footage has leaked

Could Nintendo be making a big bet on augmented reality being the future of gaming? The company has teamed up with The Pokémon Company and Google to invest a further $20m (£13m) in Niantic, the company that is currently developing Pokémon Go.

Pokémon Go was announced last month and looks set to be an augmented reality Pokémon title for mobile phones - the idea being that you will have to travel around the physical world in order to catch 'em all. Niantic is the developer that was previously behind GPS location game Ingress.

According to IBTimes, the investment is $20m upfront - with another $10m promised if the company achieves certain milestones. Interestingly, the company started life as a department within Google, but following the corporate restructuring of Google into Alphabet, it has been separated.

Presumably attracting third party investments - like this one from Nintendo - was part of Google management's thinking in creating the new corporate parent.

Though what is perhaps most tantalising for gamers is that Nintendo's investment surely indicates that the company thinks augmented reality could be a significant part of the future of gaming.

After Pokémon Go, could we see other Nintendo properties be developed by the company? What about using something like the Samsung Galaxy Gear to bring the Pokémon Trading Card Game to life with 3D monsters standing on the table?

Nintendo's smartphone gaming plan

Nintendo has announced it is to put its name to mobile phone games. This is something that has been talked about for years, after people started playing more on iPhones than Nintendo 3DSs, especially in the west.

But what sort of games will Nintendo make for mobile devices? Are we months off playing Super Mario 64 on our new Galaxy S6s?

No place for ports

Well, no. And by the looks of it, much of the games' development will not be done by Nintendo but another company, DeNA, which has teamed-up with Nintendo to create mobile games. Here's the mission statement as per Nintendo's announcement:

"Nintendo and DeNA intend to jointly operate new gaming applications featuring Nintendo IP, which they will develop specifically for smart devices."

DeNA went into a little more detail in its own announcement, saying that the games would be entirely new projects "rather than porting games created specifically for the Wii U home console or the Nintendo 3DS portable system."

Dispel any visions of waves of existing Nintendo games suddenly spilling onto Android phones and iPhones. In short, Nintendo isn't that stupid. It knows that the virtually mandatory freemium/low price mobile model would instantly devalue its console/handheld properties.

Zelda on your phone?

However, there was an interesting little excerpt from the DeNA statement we should take notice of: "all Nintendo IP will be eligible for development and exploration by the alliance." No brands are off limits. Not Mario, not Zelda.

Still, it's certainly no guarantee we'll see archetypal games of these brands on mobile, and Nintendo is likely to be very strict about approving any mobile games that feature Zelda and Mario IP.

They're just too important for other areas of its business. Older gamers may remember when Nintendo loosened its grip back in the 90s, resulting in the outright Philips CD-i FMV turd The Legend of Zelda: Wand of Gamelon (among others).

Nintendo and DeNA

To get a clearer idea about the sorts of games that will result from this partnership, we need to make some suppositions about how the partnership will operate. You may not have heard of DeNA, but you may have encountered two of its arms, Mobage and ngmoco.

Mobile gaming veterans may feel a warm glow at the mention of ngmoco, which made some of the best early iPhone games, like Rolando and Star Defense, but it's Mobage that is the most important element here. As well as a developer/publisher, Mobage is a gaming platform used predominantly in Japan, a system used to flog DeNA's games alongside Google Play and the iPhone App Store. In the past it has attracted upwards of 30 million active users.

The creation of a Nintendo network like this is the most important part in Nintendo's eyes, it seems:

"Nintendo and DeNA also plan to develop an online membership service that is accessible from smart devices, PC and Nintendo systems, such as the Nintendo 3DS portable system and the Wii U home console. The membership service, which is targeted to launch in the fall of 2015, will be built on DeNA's extensive experience and capabilities in online membership services."

Getting social

Nintendo is after some of the social-powered success DeNA has achieved, and is not happy to just make do with the infrastructure of the Apple Store and Google Play.

During the press conference where this deal was announced, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata admitted as much:

"The fact is, however, [mobile] is a highly competitive market and only a handful of content providers have been able to show enduring results. If Nintendo cannot make it to that handful of winners, it does not make sense for us to be engaged in the software business on smart devices."

If the Mobage platform is Nintendo's inspiration for this deal, it seems that — as many of you may have dreaded — freemium is the model Nintendo will focus on. All of Mobage's greatest successes are free-to-play. Examples include Rage of Bahamut and Blood Brothers.

The Disney factor

This is not the first time DeNA has made a deal with a holder of immensely important IP. In 2012, DeNA struck a similar deal with Disney, and aside from the Nintendo deal's increased focus on creating a (what sounds like) closed platform from which games can be distributed, alongside the phone app stores, it gives us an idea of how Nintendo mobile games might be made.

Star Wars is a Disney property nowadays, and the most recent mobile game made based on it is Star Wars: Galactic Defense. It was developed by DeNA Santiago, and handily the studio has created a developer diary that explains a little about the game's creation.

Despite all the positivity of the video, it appears to be a Star Wars re-skin of the popular tower defence title Kingdom Rush (stylistically) with far greater use of micro-transactions and social elements, in an effort to encourage player loyalty. It's a strategic game, in the sense that its design has been strategically put together to have the best chance of floating in the mobile space. Smart or cynical? It depends on where you stand.

The developer diary's subtext suggests Lucasfilm's involvement is more about brand compliance than game design.

On brand

Is this what is in store for Nintendo's mobile game future? Note Nintendo did not also announce a new mobile game development division, suggesting that its mobile games may be developed in much the same way: DeNA and its subsidiaries do the legwork while Nintendo checks for brand compliance and quality.

Nintendo is effectively handing over the game design reins because DeNA has much more experience in this area. Nintendo has failed to deal with the way mobile gaming has evolved in the last six years, where DeNA is a native.

Of course, at this point we don't know about how involved Nintendo will be in the game design plans for its mobile games. Anything is possible, and its not hard to imagine Nintendo being more than a little precious about its brands.

But what DeNA has done with Disney's IP suggests we're looking at pretty conventional mobile fodder where micro-transaction returns are as important to the design as game mechanics. Fine-tuning mobile transactions within games is an art, and getting that right is what separates the "handful of winners" Iwata identifies from the also-rans.

You can see this in the wording of the announcement from both Iwata and DeNA: both say they will "develop and operate" mobile applications. Mobile games aren't a product anymore, but a service.

That Nintendo is self-consciously wise to this idea tells you a lot about what to expect from Nintendo mobile games in 2015. We only hope that DeNA and Nintendo discover a mobile gaming framework that works for gamers, the money men and the brands alike. It's not an easy task.