As one of their first games planned for smartphones, Nintendo chose to develop a brand new Animal Crossing game because Nintendo's president Tatsumi Kimishima claimed that more women and children enjoyed playing the franchise.

Pocket Camp, originally slated for a late 2016 release, ended up being pushed back to a fall 2017 release due to Nintendo shifting their focus to Super Mario Run, which would become their first released mobile game after the social networking app Miitomo.