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DeNA, in Nintendo pact, aims for games bringing in over $25 million per month

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese online game maker DeNA Co Ltd on Wednesday said it wants its new partnership with gaming giant Nintendo Co Ltd to yield titles that bring in over 3 billion yen (17 million pounds) a month. The alliance, announced on March 17, will bring Nintendo characters such as Super Mario and Donkey Kong to smartphones, and see their jointly developed games available through phones and tablets as well as Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS consoles. DeNA Chief Executive Isao Moriyasu said the partners would release their first game later this year, but was coy on which character from Nintendo's trove of intellectual property (IP) would be featured. "We want to create games that will be played by hundreds of millions of people," Moriyasu told Reuters in an interview. "We want to create multiple hit games rather than aiming to succeed with just one powerful IP element." "We haven't talked to Nintendo about targets, but at DeNA, our best-selling game brought in 3 billion yen a month, and we want to surpass that," he said, referring to smartphone game Kaito Royale which was turned into a TV series. The companies have not disclosed details of any revenue-sharing agreement, but analysts said Nintendo will likely earn around 70 percent of proceeds from the partnership. Investors have long called on Nintendo to shift focus to mobile devices after losing customers to both smartphone gaming app makers and console rivals such as PlayStation maker Sony Corp and Xbox maker Microsoft Corp. DeNA, for its part, hopes the deal will help it regain its footing in the gaming industry after struggling to shift to the more popular platform of gaming apps from browser-based games. (Reporting by Ritsuko Ando and Reiji Murai; Editing by Christopher Cushing)