After years of staying away from the mobile game business, Nintendo officially announced a partnership with Japanese mobile giant DeNA to work on original games using Nintendo's licensed IP.

The games will be published and sold through DeNA and might not make it out of Japan. DeNA also bought a minority stake in Nintendo, which might have been part of the deal.

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Nintendo has been hesitant about the mobile gaming market for years but following the failure of the Wii U commercially, it might be looking for additional revenue options.

That said, Nintendo is still focused on the console market and claims it's working on a brand new console concept called NX. It will still work on updates for the Wii U but it's clear the company is looking for a way out of the poor performing system.

Mobile gaming using the Nintendo brand -- which includes Mario, Zelda and a few other classics -- could be a huge hit if Nintendo invests a lot of time in games that are enjoyable in short bursts.

Typical console or PC games are made to be played for hours at a time while mobile games offer short spurts of content. Nintendo has sort-of-embraced these short bursts with levels but these can take hours to fully flesh out and learn.

TagsNintendo, Mario, mobile, free-to-play