Rumours of Nintendo working on its own mobile phone have been appearing on and off for the past decade, and recently we even heard that the idea almost become a reality back in 2004. The prospect of owning a mobile telecommunications device crafted to suit Nintendo’s unique vision is a tantalising one, but the firm has so far refused to embrace the notion. With shareholders calling for Nintendo to make its titles available for a wider audience by embracing existing mobile platforms such as iOS and Android, you might assume that the time for creating a unique mobile device has long since passed, but we’re not so sure. In fact, it could be argued that there’s never been a better time for Nintendo to release a handset of its own.
Would you switch phones for Mario? Would anyone?
Then again, imagine if Google struck a deal with Nintendo – a full, proper Android phone from Nintendo, with exclusive access to Nintendo’s games via Nintendo’s own additional platform. Could potentially work.
But then Nintendo would probably have to deal with Microsoft trying to leach money out of it for running Android.
I already own a Mario(fish) Chromebook.
Knowing Nintendo, there’s no way they’d put out a full Android phone. It would probably be a gimped monstrosity like the Amazon phone and IMO, a horrible idea. What they really SHOULD do is start releasing some of their older titles for iOS/Android. They could probably make a killing with a proper port of Super Mario 3.
Yep. Let them release their games on all platforms and release a Nintendo controller for Phones that all their games can standardize on.
I think they’ve had that idea for a while, but probably only as a fall-back option in case their current offerings didn’t work out. If they eventually do decide to make/port titles for iOS and Android, I’m pretty certain Apple and Google will welcome them with open arms and blank checks.
The Wii-U seems to be selling okay right now – particularly since the release of Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros – so the next point of focus for them would be the 3DS successor, which is what’s prompted this Nintendophone speculation, I suppose.
Personally, I don’t see them making a smartphone. That’s just way too conformist for Nintendo. They might do a Sega and decide to make games for other platforms, but I don’t see that happening in the near future either, and hope it never happens, tbh.
Edited 2014-12-08 20:12 UTC
As long as the 3DS continues to print money for them, I think they’ll do okay in the mobile space making their own handhelds.
However, I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing them exit the console making business altogether. Just have MS or Sony pay them a shitload of $$ to have them develop games exclusively on their system. Then, you could just buy whatever goofy controller add-on they require, instead of putting their 1st party games behind a $250+ paywall.
Nintendo doesn’t want a device that isn’t dedicated to playing games, it’s not something they care to do. They would much rather spend time and money perfecting the next handheld than either shoehorning games onto a phone – or squeezing a phone into some handheld. It’s not in their DNA. Their announced strategy is pretty simple with phones; they’ll release a few companion apps to keep interest in the games, but nothing real or serious.
With phones the margins are lower, the devices aren’t as good for gaming, and Nintendo isn’t keen on splitting the profits with other companies. They’d rather push their own digital stores on the Wii/Ds, and they don’t need to build an android device to do it. The DS is missing phone calls? They don’t care, and there’s no reason to build a third-tier handicapped device for something they don’t care about anyway.
Look at it this way; the blog which posted the article is named “Nintendo Life”; if any group of people were to give a resounding “yes” to phone hardware it would be them… But not even half said ‘yes’ to buying a Nintendo phone. On a Nintendo superfan blog.
What in gaming would being able to make phone calls improve? What in apps could yet-another-app-store improve? What in hardware could a gaming phone do better than a DS? Would you pay $500+ or accept a 3-year contract for a “DS that can make phone calls”? Why would Nintendo give up their finely-tuned gaming OSs’ for Android, which they have no experience with?
I know I’m going hard on this, but the whole article is lunacy. Just because something could go on a phone doesn’t mean it should. The article said Nintendo should embrace mobile; but they completely forget that Nintendo literally mainstreamed mobile gaming – saying “it’s not mobile unless it’s a phone” is moronic.
Edited 2014-12-08 20:12 UTC
Launching a new platform isn’t impossible, but it entirely depends on the software you bring with you. Windows Phone, BBOS, they all have the same problem. They don’t ship on day one with the same available software (or software of as high a quality/usefulness) as what they are competing with.
That said, if Nintendo can ship enough great non-gaming software, and a decent eco system (their eshop, etc.) then they could have a win. They don’t have a good track record on either front.
They don’t need to make a phone, just an app that’s lets people play and buy Retro games, that maybe uses the Nintendo account to let people play the games they already bought on a console.
And didn’t Nintendo have a patent for an emulator anyways? I think that would be better then porting games one at a time. Just encrypt the roms to work with an official emulator only(not that the games are hard to find anyways).
A phone might be okay for rubbish like fruit ninja/cut the rope/angry birds, etc, but it’s *not* a peasonable device for playing platformers or top-down RPGs on.
You basically need those dedicated buttons and control stick/d-pad, like with the 3DS.
Nintendo won’t make compromises on gameplay, releasing their own specialised controllers for everything.
There’s no way they would sink to the level of allowing their titles on those touch-screen devices.
… or they could create a fork.
Then if I want to use the Google Play store, watch videos on Amazon Prime, and play some Nintendo games I could buy 3 different devices and can’t do any 2 of those things on any of them.
Nintendo getting into the mobile phone business? Sounds like a horrible idea. Not surprised it hasn’t happened.