Bloomberg reports that Nintendo’s investors are increasingly beginning to pressure the gaming giant to begin developing games for the iPhone and other mobile platforms.
Although hardly surprising considering that an ever increasing segment of users are abandoning consoles of all kinds, and instead choosing to play games on iPhones, iPads, and other portable devices. Not only are the games much cheaper on iOS specifically, but many are of comparable quality and playability to much more expensive studio-developed console games.
Considering how poorly Nintendo’s 3DS is doing on the market, with Nintendo already significantly slashing prices in an attempt to make the console more appealing, it wouldn’t be terribly surprising to me to see Nintendo jump on the smartphone bandwagon.
Nintendo’s stock is currently at a 6-year low point, after only briefly seeing a significant boost on news that a 3rd-party developer would bring an officially licensed Pokemon-themed game to the iPhone.
Would it really be so bad for Nintendo to back out of at least the portable console market, leaving consumers with one less “single purpose” gadget to deal with? Not at all – in fact, if they played their cards right, it might just turn things around significantly for the company.
Despite the rather obvious benefits that Nintendo could reap by bringing their titles to smartphones and other gaming systems, Nintendo President Saturo Iwata will have none of it, and maintains his firm stance that Nintendo will only make titles for its own products as long as he’s in control.