Nintendo will launch its first-ever smartphone app next week

Few companies are as slow to adapt to market changes as Nintendo, but the beloved video game company has finally decided to get with times and embrace the smartphone market. The company partnered up with DeNA a while back to develop a handful of smartphone apps that it plans to release over the next year or so, and it announced on Thursday that the first of those apps, known as Miitomo, will launch in Japan next week. The app will launch outside of Japan sometime this month as well, but we don’t know the exact date.

Nintendo has announced that its social messaging mobile app Miitomo will launch in Japan March 17. We’ve known that that the first of Nintendo’s projects with Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA was due to launch sometime this month, but this is the first word of a firm date in any territory. Nintendo plans to launch the app in other territories later this month, although no other specific dates have been announced. The final day for Miitomo pre-registration in Japan is the 16th. Miitomo was described by Nintendo last year as “a free-to-start communication application that helps friends share fun personal facts and interests. Consumers create and use their own Mii characters to engage friends in a welcoming social environment, answering questions and sharing information to discover more about each other and what they have in common. Miitomo is designed to appeal to a wide range of global smart device users and introduce them to uniquely Nintendo experiences beginning with Miitomo and carried through future applications.” Nintendo’s partnership with DeNA was announced roughly a year ago, and the partnership promises five new titles by March 2017.