NINTENDO REVEALS MARIO NFC FIGURINE FOR WII U AND 3DS

Nintendo showcased a Mario NFC figurine during its investor’s meeting today. The company is making character figurines that are code-named Nintendo Figurine Platform (NFP), which contain built-in NFC functionality and will be compatible with both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS, which is getting its own NFC reader/writer that will launch next year.

“To establish new and growing areas through the active utilization of character IP, it is important for Nintendo to take risks ourselves and come up with interesting ways to use our character IP,” said Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. “In other words, other than using character IP in Nintendo’s video game software, we need to start a new business that will someday become one of our core activities.

“We have decided to release character figurines with built-in NFC functionality that are compatible with video games starting from this year-end sales season. We are calling the figurines by their development codename, NFP, which comes from “NFC Featured Platform” and “Nintendo Figurine Platform.

“Nintendo has been developing an NFC reader/writer for the Nintendo 3DS family, as you can see on this slide, and we are planning to launch it in the first half of the next calendar year. This will make Nintendo 3DS compatible with the NFC reader/writer via infrared communication, and as a result, you will be able to read and write NFC data with the Nintendo 3DS device in the palm of your hand.

“That is to say, NFP is going to be compatible with Wii U software from this year-end, and compatible with both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS software from next year.”