Last November, Nintendo and DeNA announced that they would be forming a new, joint endeavour to focus on researching and developing digital services. This venture, called Nintendo Systems, has now been officially established.

In fact, this is the latest of many partnerships between the two companies, with DeNA playing a large role in many of Nintendo’s mobile enterprises.

The pair have collaborated on games like Pokémon Masters, Fire Emblem Heroes, Mario Kart Tour and Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp.

A partnership progressing

Nintendo Systems is a subsidiary of Japanese giant Nintendo, as announced last year with the added confirmation that Nintendo would be providing 80 percent of capital. President and director Tetsuya Sasaki is leading the new company, known in full as Nintendo Systems Co., Ltd.

A new Nintendo Systems website has launched to coincide with this, with a statement roughly translating to: "Nintendo Systems was born in April 2023, led by a team of engineers from Nintendo and DeNA to create a system that facilitates the delivery of Nintendo’s entertainment to our customers.

"Nintendo Systems will leverage the relationship of trust between Nintendo and DeNA that has been nurtured through a partnership of over seven years to create new innovations for the world, driven by Nintendo’s originality and DeNA’s knowledge of technology."

As the pair’s most successful mobile game to date, Fire Emblem Heroes surpassed $1 billion in lifetime earnings last summer.

Since then, cross-promotions have taken place between it and the main series games on Nintendo Switch, such as Heroes’ original character Veronica appearing in Fire Emblem Engage’s DLC; she is able to summon fighters to battle, as a callback to Heroes’ gacha mechanics.

Mario Kart Tour, another joint enterprise, made almost $300 million in revenue by its third anniversary. Pokémon Masters EX, meanwhile, celebrated its 3.5 year anniversary in February with new characters, events and legendary Pokémon.