Nintendo Finds a Hit With Its New Social App, Miitomo

Update:

Japan: Miitomo is number one on the Android charts as the top free download

http://nintendoeverything.com/japan-miitomo-is-number-one-on-the-android-charts-as-the-top-free-download/

Nintendo Co.’s foray into smartphones is off to a good start.

Miitomo, a free messaging-based application, reached No. 1 among social-networking apps in Japan on Apple Inc.’s iOS devices on the day of its release, market researcherApp Annie said on Friday. Line, the country’s most popular instant messenger, fell to second place.

Nintendo is seeking to bring back players who migrated away from games on company’s dedicated hardware, such as the Wii and handheld DS devices. The Kyoto-based company has promised to bring hits like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong to smartphones, helping to boost its share price 33 percent last year. So far, President Tatsumi Kimishima has been coy, saying only that Nintendo’s next smartphone game will feature one of the company’s beloved characters.

“This should remove any doubts about the Nintendo brand’s relevancy in the smartphone age,” said Atul Goyal, an analyst at Jefferies Group LLC. “More than just a messaging tool, Miitomo can be a platform for distributing Nintendo content, and probably third-party content at a later stage.”

Meet Your Miitomo

Miitomo, currently available only in Japan, lets users automatically generate a cartoon-like avatar using a photo taken on the smartphone. Players can tweak minute facial features, set personality parameters and choose the character’s voice.

Then, Miitomo starts to ask questions that range from “what did you do last weekend?” to “what’s your favorite kind of uniform?” Answers are rewarded with virtual coins, which can be used to buy clothes and accessories for the avatar. Miitomo then encourages people to share their in-app selfies on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Line. The app also offers rewards for connecting with friends.

Nintendo plans to make Miitomo, a play on the words "me" and "friend" in Japanese, available in 15 more countries this month, including the U.S., France, Germany and Russia. The company has said it will roll out five games for mobile devices by March 2017.

“We had a good start and have received very positive feedback,” Nintendo spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said, declining to disclose the number of downloads. “Miitomo will continue to evolve.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-18/nintendo-finds-a-hit-with-its-new-social-app-miitomo

Well, is it any wonder they reached the number one spot when all of Nintendo's fans probably got It? What will be interesting is to see if they can hold on to that spot and for how long

Awesome :)

Maybe Nintendo's ninja's did some stealth marketing :p.

Not my personal cup of tea but I'm glad it found success.

It's more the total number accumulated rather than the ammount moved each week that's key as each app is someone signing up for the new accounts system which is their main goal, once someone has an account they're essentially a consumer for the long term.

I doubted the success of Amiibo at first, hell i thought it would not be successfull at all.

Dead wrong i was, now imagine the success of free to play games by Nintendo globally.

The software is a means to get people on board the new accounts system, once that's done they can drop it if they want as the hard work is already done, if the app goes on to be downloaded 20m times for example that's 20m accounts that were created, if a person had no intent of becoming a customer they wouldn't bother going through the hassle of creating an account. The's also no other app similar to Miitomo.

Dang, it passed Line on its release? That's a good start indeed. Line is so huge there, practically everyone uses it. Hopefully it keeps going strong.

It may be old, but it is still strong. I haven't been in Japan for while, but during the time I was there, almost everyone used it. I eventually had to join in on it because many of my friends kept bugging me about it.

I wonder too, is Line of the social apps you use?