GungHo wants to top Nintendo

GungHo CEO Kazuki Morishita told reporters that he wants to surpass Nintendo’s sales before he retires. Bloomberg reports that the 39-year-old’s comments came as he was being interviewed in Tokyo after his company posted Q1 results.

GungHo’s revenue for Q1 came to approximately $307 million, one third of Nintendo’s numbers for the same period. While that may make it may seem like GungHo has a long way to go to reach Morishita’s goal, the company also reported growth of 900% while Nintendo only grew 1%.

“I want to make people think whatever GungHo does is fun,” like they do at Nintendo, Morishita said. “I respect Nintendo.”

GungHo’s success is largely built on the free-to-play mobile phone game Puzzle & Dragons which rakes in about $3.4 million a day. It’s not as popular in the West, but Puzzle & Dragons is the top-grossing app for smartphones in the world. It has remained in the top of the charts since its debut in February 2012.

GungHo plans to bring Puzzle & Dragons to the Nintendo 3DS later this year. Although the 3DS version will not have the lucrative in-app purchases, GungHo has stated that the game is “targeting children” to “increase lifetime customers” of their brand.