But it would have (further) imbedded nintendo's mascott character into the psyche of the unsuspecting 'casual' consumer.

For months they would be uttering 'It's me, Mario!' in their sleep.

Nintendo's luck ran out. Simply the same reason why Sony fell as well, there is no manifest destiny in the console or handheld market and a large part of the great success they both had previously is simply good fortune.

IPad and Iphone and other android phones have taken away valuable casual game market share. The new competition offer games for a fraction of the price of the consoles and portable game devices. Companies need to adapt to the market or introduce a game changer of their own.

Shhh! It's only disruption when Nintendo does it.

Only if Ninty was stupid enough to model and market their nintyphone as a BlackberryDS. They should simply licence the Blackberry OS for their phone, but otherwise market nand design it as a purely Ninty device. RIM is merely the provider of the phone and app OS. It's just that they don't really want to go Android which is where Sony lives in the mobile gaming (Playstation certified) space, they can't go WP8 (well they possibly could, but they're hardly going to put MS exclusive franchises on their machines and no doubt MS would insist as part of giving them WP8 for "free"). And Hell will freeze over before Apple lets them use iOS. Simbian IS dead. As is the HP mobile OS. That leaves them with RIM's OS. It's really only Blackberry devices that are unappealing to the mass market. Having a Nintyphone gives RIM OS a phone with a huge mass market potential, while RIM can concentrate its own devices in the corporate niche.

Android for a Nintyphone is a possibility as a neutral OS, and Ninty could go head to head with Sony within that ecosystem.  But really RIM's OS is plenty good enough, with enough cred for quality, if not marketshare, and long established that it would be a fine and well performing OS on a Nintyphone.  A lot of non-gaming multiplatform App developers would put their apps on the RIM OS simply because a Nintyphone would sell very well in Japan and other Asian markets.

Achievement unlocked. You've earned Self Pwnd.

I believe Patcher is quite right here.

There wasn't even a need for sequels as those games are still selling strong today. Nintendo should've continued to release new disrupting games. An RPG that focuses on local multiplayer and co-op featuring Mii's would have been the best thing on earth. We're regularly having gaming parties here and everyone has been craving for such a game. A full blown Karaoke game made by Nintendo would've filled a big void as well. "We Sing" is selling quite well in Europe but it can't compete with Nintendo quality. And of course New Legend of Zelda.

And the operating system is pretty much the weakest point on RIM, Ninty would be far better off developing their own OS or using Android despite it also having Sony. Of course I'm actually not a huge fan of the idea of a DSPhone anyway.

Yeah you are right. I'm an advocate of more Mario Bros. games per system as well and I would've loved a Wii Sports 3. I still think they didn't need those games for the Wii to sell. It would have pushed the console further but more new mass market IP's would've had a bigger effect. It was not meant to say "stop making sequels", though. I wanted to stress the go after your audience and expand the market part as Oniyide could've read this as "just more of the same". Here's hope we'll get Wii Sports 3 early in the Wii U's life and Nintendo's announcement of a 2D Mario for 3DS won't mean the Wii U title gets pushed back. We play so much Mario Bros Wii in 4 player mode I need at least two games per console or one day I'll fall asleep playing world 2-3 again.