Mii Plaza games give a glimpse of Nintendo's possible pivot to mobile

Let's imagine Nintendo were to enter the world of mobile phone game development. What sorts of games would it make? Would social and physical activity be a part of the game?

You don't have to wait around to see such a game right now: Nintendo has stealthily released four of them on the Nintendo 3DS, but buried them in a place few people tend to check. And along with Animal Crossing, they represent a more mobile-oriented game approach than you'd expect.

When I say "mobile-oriented," here's what I mean: these games actually require you to go out and walk around, either to earn play coins for the steps you take, or to "meet people" who end up helping you play. They're meant to be played in small sessions, every day, like a routine. Much like Animal Crossing, the game play's accumulative.

Maybe you've looked at the Mii Plaza, Nintendo's odd little semisocial destination on the 3DS that's one part PlayStation Home, one part Wii dashboard. Maybe you haven't. I bet you haven't. It's an obscure area of an already somewhat obscure Nintendo 3DS platform. It's where you can find other people's Miis that you might run into, see their profiles, and use their avatars to play included games like Find Mii, or collect pieces to puzzles featuring Nintendo characters. The 3DS' built-in pedometer, which I often forget about too, collects Play Coins for every 100 steps you take, and they're amassed here for unlocking extras in games (Animal Crossing actually lets you spend these play coins for fortune cookies with bonus knickknacks).

You leave your Nintendo 3DS in Street Pass mode, and go for a walk, and see what random Miis you collect.

The four new games that popped into Mii Plaza actually cost $4.99 each, or $14.99 for all four. You can't find them on the eShop: they're only in Mii Plaza.

What do they offer? Games that feel, in various ways, like mobile phone apps. Mii Force, Flower Town, Warrior's Way, and Monster Manor all have their own sets of content to unlock: Mii Force is a side-scrolling space shooter, Flower Town has you collecting and breeding flowers, Warrior's Way is a rock-paper-scissors battle game, and Monster Manor is a board game-like ghost hunt through a multilevel house.

Each one requires you to find other Miis, which offer you starship weapons, puzzle pieces, or troops to reinforce your battle army. Play Coins can substitute for finding and collecting other people's Miis as you walk around, but that requires walking, too. If you have neither, you can't really play.

If you're not a 3DS owner, you probably won't care. Even if you are, you may not care. But they're actually fun, if you like a more casual play-a-bit-a-day style: Mii Force and Monster Manor, in particular, are two of Nintendo's better downloadable games. Just don't expect to play for more than a few minutes, unless you walk a lot or meet lots of Street Pass Miis.

Monster Manor needs puzzle pieces from strangers to play.

If you've ever hoped Nintendo would enter Google Play or iOS App Store with a new breed of games, maybe you can dream of these as an inkling of how Nintendo could go mobile. Because these games are designed to be played on the go: in fact, you can't do that by just sitting down. It makes me wonder whether a type of Wii Fit game could ever make a move onto the 3DS, just focusing on recording/gamifying physical activity. Why aren't similar types of reward-earning pedometer games on mobile phones now? And if they are, why aren't they more popular?

Mii Plaza's games might be onto something, if enough people care to play.

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How Sony and Nintendo can battle the Xbox One

Microsoft's Xbox One is out of the bag, and the next-gen console war's in full swing. So what happens next? Truthfully, the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U are still big boxes of mystery -- even though one's already been out in stores for months.

So, how will this new gaming landscape shake out? Sony and Nintendo, the also-rans to the current success story of Microsoft and the Xbox 360, will have options. But they're not always pretty.

Sony

Differentiate or die
Under the hood, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are more similar than any two gaming consoles have ever been: both have AMD-based processors, Blu-ray video capabilities, camera bar sensors, and motion controls. And both promise cloud service improvements. Microsoft may have the edge on TV-input promise, but that's not an ace in the hole. Sony needs to explain why people would choose a PS4. That "share" button isn't enough. Microsoft's clearly going after Sony's media-hub consumer electronics strategy and design aesthetic, so PlayStation needs another angle.

Cloud streaming: find the killer app
Sony's Gaikai acquisition and PS4 integration have potential, but what's the amazing feature that people can understand? Sony has already muddied the waters with its current PlayStation Certified program, which delivered only old original PlayStation games on a handful of tablets and phones (like Sony's own Xperia line). Sony needs to reboot this concept and make it real: play any PS4 game on any Android or iOS device so long as you have good bandwidth and aPlayStation controller at hand. It's a tall order, to be sure. But that would be a game changer (pun intended).

Think the Amazon Prime approach: lots of great content, and the rest you pay for individually. (And, combined with the streaming approach listed above, you could play them anywhere.)Turn PlayStation Plus into Netflix-meets-Amazon Prime
Sony's done a nice job of offering a lot of freebies with the PlayStation Plus. It could go further: what if Sony actively curated a catalog of older games for every platform and gave many of them away for free to subscribers?

Triple down on original and curated content
Sony as a game studio has a big edge on Microsoft: its first-party efforts have often better. Plus, there's Sony's little-discussed "pub fund" that finds new talent out of game-design schools like USC, leading to console-defining indie efforts like Journey and The Unfinished Swan. Even if Sony sells off its music and TV ventures, the game-development studios should strengthen, and focus on providing a thriving, open platform.

Be even more 'gamer-friendly' than Microsoft
So, this is a tough sell: Xbox Live is the best online service of the gaming generation we're in right now. But in talking to people after the PS4 and Xbox One events, I hear more gamers satisfied by Sony's "game and specs porn" approach thus far than by Microsoft's, which focused on the Xbox One's wide range of entertainment options, leaving actual games to be discussed at the company's E3 press conference later in June. Maybe Sony can run with this and present an even more gamer-oriented take this time out, rather than the traditional Sony "home entertainment plus games" package. Then again... narrowing focus doesn't feel like a proper strategy against Microsoft.

Price
Maybe the PS4 can be more affordable than the Xbox One... but sacrificing profitability on hardware can be a Pyrrhic victory.

Nintendo

Give up on "next-gen"
Nintendo's already lost the next-gen wars, if the trophy's given to hardware. The Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are a different class of product, and studios like EA are sending a clear message: the PS4 and Xbox One stand together, and the Wii U stands alone. But Nintendo never won with the Wii on pure power: it was a GameCube under the hood with a new controller that won on selling a fun proposition to families. So...play to those strengths.

Focus on kids
The Wii, the Nintendo DS/DSi, and now the 3DS thrive on being kid-friendly and parent-friendly. The Xbox One, with its imposing piano-black finish and AV-receiver facade, isn't for kids. It's for parents. The PS4 looks like it's for mature gamers. Nintendo needs to keep focus on kids and family -- and stop trying to shoehorn hard-core gamers in.

Make it cheap
If the Wii U were half the price of an Xbox One or PS4, there might be some hope. But that aggressive strategy needs to start now. The Wii always had a price edge on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but the current $349 price is just too much. The "Basic" Wii U SKU just got slicedfrom $299 to $239 at Target -- that's a start, but Big N needs to be even more aggressive.

Revise the GamePad hardware
It's bulky and has terrible battery life. Shrunken down and boasting better performance, it could change perceptions of the Wii U. It needs to work better, and the Wii U software needs to be far less laggy.

Make your own games
I said this before. I'll say it again. Mario, Zelda, Metroid. More please. Repeat again. Do it a lot.

Fix or dump TVii
There are interesting ideas baked into Nintendo's TVii strategy: the GamePad as IR remote control, and the easy-to-swap way that streaming video leaps between tablet and television. But TVii is a half-baked product as far as the way it works with cable boxes. We'd prefer Nintendo to keep TVii...and figure it out a little better

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Nintendo hit with $30.2M in damages over 3D patent suit

Nintendo was found liable of infringing on glasses-free 3D technology in a lawsuit that wrapped up today.

A New York federal jury concluded that the game maker used features of a patent developed by Seijiro Tomita in its handheld 3DS gaming device, according to Reuters. The jury awarded Tomita $30.2 million in compensatory damages.

"We are thankful to the jurors for their diligence and hard work," Tomita's attorney Joe Diamante told Reuters. "It has been a honor to represent Mr. Tomita and to protect his invention."

Tomita, who is a former Sony employee, said that he developed the patent to make 3D images that can be seen without 3D glasses. Nintendo uses this type of technology in its 3DS device. The 3D effect in this video game system can be adjusted with a slider making game characters come more or less to life.

Tomita filed the lawsuit against Nintendo in 2011. According to Reuters, Nintendo's attorney Scott Lindvall claimed that the 3DS device doesn't use the central features of Tomita's patent.

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