Earlier this year, Nintendo made waves in the mobile market when it announced that it was teaming up with DeNA to bring many of its beloved franchises to tablets and smartphones. But many are still wondering what the company’s huge outlook for mobile is, as it hasn’t revealed all of its plans just yet.

One thing it won’t do, however, is try to copy the prevailing mobile game strategy where a small number of well-paying players provide the bulk of the revenue. VentureBeat has reported that Nintendo president and chief executive officer Satoru Iwata has stated that it’s vital to realize what gamers are doing with free-to-play applications and where money is being spent. However, he doesn’t want development teams to bend over backward from data based on these purchases to create something that matches a current trend. He wants his company to make games that stand out.

“Even though this data may be an indicator, if we focus on such numbers alone as the basis of our thinking about what actions will be most effective, it means that we will analyze why certain game applications are selling well in order to make one with a similar structure,” said Iwata, speaking during a meeting with investors. “(And that) means we will end up copying exactly what is already happening in the market for smart devices.”

A quality app was able to make a good profit in the early going days of mobile, Iwata said, and although the market has changed since, Nintendo’s doesn’t want to resort to “cloning” ideas to gain success. “With intense competition, generating revenue on smart devices is no longer easy,” he said. “I don’t think we can realize what we aspire to by simply imitating a past success formula.”

A lot of developers have taken this stance as of late, including the likes of EA and Square Enix amongst others, while others have take the “copycat” route to latch onto current favorites, such as Candy Crush Saga. Iwata, however, believes “individuality” is the key” for both iOS and Android formats. Iwata also hopes to derive a small amount of money from a very large number of players, the inverse of the usual practice among mobile games.

We’ll see how these plans come into play when the company’s first mobile release arrives later this year.