Rumors of Nintendo exploring smartphone games continue to pile up, but the company is denying the latest. Yesterday, Japanese business daily Nikkei reported that Nintendo would be using smartphones as a platform for releasing videos and minigames to promote its Wii U and 3DS titles. However, the company has since said that it will not be offering games on non-Nintendo hardware. "We can confirm that there are no plans to offer minigames on smartphone devices," Nintendo explained in a statement. Nintendo has previously denied Nikkei rumors that have turned out to be true, however — in June 2012 the paper reported that Nintendo was working on a larger version of the DS, which the company denied. The 3DS XL was announced later that month.

Last year, Nintendo of America president and COO Reggie Fils-Aime revealed that the company  was "experimenting" with the idea of using simple gameplay on smartphones for marketing purposes. "If we can motivate you to have a little taste of a Nintendo experience and drive you towards the Wii U or 3DS," he said, "we've won. The most recent denial comes after a flurry of speculation following the company's dramatically slashed sales forecast for the struggling Wii U. Not long after that, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that the company was "studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business," but offered no specifics for what that might mean.