DeNA financials offer new insight into Nintendo partnership

DeNA's latest financials have shed light on its partnership with Nintendo, which will see both companies work together to release five "carefully selected" mobile games by March 2017. 

As outlined in its operating results brief, DeNA is anticipating that the duo's first release, StreetPass-esque messaging app, Miitomo, will reach over 200 million players worldwide. 

The company also highlighted a number of other objectives, revealing plans to drive user engagement by harnessing the "strong virality" of Miis and making the app accessible from external accounts, such as Facebook. DeNA hopes strong user retention will stem from player's emotional attachment to their avatars.

The Japanese mobile outfit confirmed it will be focusing on creating free-to-play titles for Nintendo, stating that Miitomo will be "free to download [title] with optional paid items," before adding that it will apply "the same approach" to all other jointly developed games. 

DeNA also reiterated that all Nintendo IPs, including the developer's "major franchises", could be given the mobile treatment -- as has been discussed by Nintendo.

"The main objective is to produce multiple hit titles and make the collaborated business profitable on its own," reads DeNA's financial report. 

"[Our] goal is to achieve sustained, medium- to long-term profits based on strong user engagement. The primary role of Nintendo will be to manage the front end whereas DeNA will focus on back end for the apps."

Glancing quickly at DeNA's financials for the quarter ended September 30, overall revenue was up by 4.2 percent year-over-year, rising from 71.8 billion yen ($584 million) to 74.8 billion yen ($609 million). 

Profits, however, were down by 26.7 percent, falling from 9.25 billion yen ($75.2 million) to 6.77 billion yen ($55.1 million) year-over-year.