Remember when people used to buy dedicated portable gaming equipment? The Nintendo Game Boy hit American shores in 1989 and over the years we’ve seen it become more and more capable, with the latest incarnation being the poorly selling 3DS. Folks have started wondering why Nintendo simply doesn’t bring their widely loved franchises to platforms other than those that Nintendo controls, more specifically iOS. At a recent press conference, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata was asked what’s up with iOS, and he responded that iOS games are “absolutely not under consideration”. That brings a tear to our eyes, but also starts getting the gears in our minds turning. What if Nintendo decided to make their own mobile phone? It’s been a rumor since as far back as we can remember, and in today’s age of nearly everyone and their mother slapping Android on Qualcomm silicon, why couldn’t Nintendo do the same thing?
If Apple’s iOS platform has proven anything, it’s that if you give developers a powerful device, relativity easy to use tools, and a billing mechanism that allows consumers to purchase games on impulse, then you can print money. Anyway, at least Nintendo isn’t chasing short term profits. Iwata went on to say:
“If we did this, Nintendo would cease to be Nintendo. Having a hardware development team in-house is a major strength. It’s the duty of management to make use of those strengths. It’s probably the correct decision in the sense that the moment we started to release games on smartphones we’d make profits. However, I believe my responsibility is not to short term profits, but to Nintendo’s mid and long term competitive strength.”
We’re curious, if Nintendo made a phone made purely for gaming, and they developed their own ecosystem for it, totally separate from Android/iOS/WindowsPhone, would you bite and make the switch to whatever it is they bring to the market?
[Via: Boy Genius Report]