Thanks for all the thoughtful replies, essentially there's a consensus.  Nintendo should solidify their current position, stay true to what they know best--making great games.

It's gonna be very interesting times indeed... with practically everything about to go wireless, in the grand scheme of things, cellphones are merely a subset.

i watched the pokemon review on ign and they had a VOIP demo for in-game chat.  i was quite surprised by the clarity.  recalling a nintendo cellphone patent years ago, one cannot stop but wonder just what are the possibilities for such a strong content provider like nintendo.  for comparison--EA paid $680 million for JAMDAT.

interesting times indeed if you happen to be in Nintendo management! 

Lingyis said: of the 3 console makers, nintendo is the only one completely dependent on gaming. sony and MS are obviously gigantic, and as they pursue their own home hub strategy, nintendo seems to have found a crack in their armour and surprised everyone with the wii, and the wide appeal of the DS. iwata has done a tremendous jobs as CEO, his vision such as expanding the target audience and focus on fun is reflected in the success of DS and the Wii. the marketplace changes fast, other companies will innovate and it's far from a sure bet that nintendo's fortune will ride so high a couple of years from now. though it has remain profitable the past couple of decades, nintendo HAS been on a roller coaster ride and certainly that is not something they want. with its stock price at a multi year high (market value $40 bln) and a big cash stash ($7 bln), perhaps it's time for nintendo to hedge against that risk. if you're the CEO of nintendo, what would be your vision and what would you do? will you venture outside of gaming, or solidify your position as the #1 gaming company in the world? nintendo is already courting 3rd party M rated titles. i personally would like to see nintendo enter some kind of alliance with disney, which is expanding its interactive entertainment division (i.e. gaming) and would welcome nintendo's expertise in the area, and nintendo will benefit from the disney's huge presence in family oriented entertainment. movie games have in general sucked; i'm sure miyamoto has some ideas that he is eager to try out, and disney (which has acquired pixar) franchises would be perfect. it'll probably truly usher in the era of more than just movie-games, but true "interactive" entertainment. and now that steve jobs is disney's largest shareholder, it would also have interesting implications with apple's home hub strategy. in the really, really, really long fun, i find it hard to see nintendo as an individual entity, unless it becomes a sega and only publishes titles, which would be a huge step down. so when it still has the reputation of being one of the more innovative companies in the world, better start making alliances or even enter mergers. buying up small movie studios would also be interesting. dreamworks animation (market cap $3 bln) would be a very interesting proposal, though nothing beats the disney/nintendo tandem.

It's pretty cool you brought up disney, because I thought of the same thing. They could totally use Nintendo licenses for merchandise, shows on the disney channel, rides in their parks, and Nintendo could totally makes some great exclusive Disney game experiences. But I think it's sort of hard to justify, for either company nintendo makes plenty off their own franchises they don't need disney, and disney does the same with their own they don't need Mario to sell their products. So if they did try this they should start small, like have a game that mixes the disney and Nintendo charcters much like the Sonic alliance for the Olympics, and see how it is recieved. I would like to see Nintendo though focus on gaming maybe something else huge like pokemon, they need another game with big tie-ins that link the handheld with the main system that has a massive world. The next big thing Nintendo has which I think will be really huge is Maple Story, they are publishing it from this Korean company it's the first handheld MMO for the DS, it looks really fun and addicting, if it becomes huge expect toys a Wii remake/spinoff and the whole nine yards.  I'd also like to see Nintendo try a CG movie based perhaps on Zelda or Metroid with a game tie-in, sort of like a prequal for a game, that could be interesting. Either way Pokemon has already shown their franchises are totally ripe for more entertainment options, I'm surprised they haven't explored. Nonetheless they are miles ahead of sony and MS in the toy/show spinoffs, for crying outloud pokemon has a store of its own. 

 

I do say nintendo should use those cash and secure exclusive to popular franchise like MGS, FF, DMC and etc, or Buy Sonic and show sega how it should be done.

DKII said: I wonder how difficult it would be to make "3D" games on the TV screen the same way they do with 3d movies, ie the red/blue 3d glasses. Probably too gimmicky though. Thus why I'm not the CEO. :p

Funny you should ask.  I did this exact thing -- I wrote a graphics engine that could display offset images in red and blue, so that when you wear red/blue glasses, you see the image in 3D.  The results were compelling enough that this is exactly what I would design a console for if I had the resources.  When I saw that spaceship fly out of my monitor and right up to my FACE, my jaw was on the floor.

Virtual Boy may have been an utter failure, but look at the thing.  A big, unwieldy stand that you put your face up to so you can immerse your face in red lights.  Think of the ways in which you could make this better with today's technology (and technology in 3 years' time, especially if you dedicate some R&D).  We know that responsive, color LCD screens are cheap enough, because the DS has two of them.  A modern pair of 3D glasses would need... bingo, two LCD screens.  The rest is just details.

True 3D really needs to be seen to be believed.  If any of you have a copy of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter and a pair of red/cyan 3D glasses, do yourself a favor and enable "stereoscopic rendering" in the advanced graphics options.  Play for a few minutes, then imagine it without the eyestrain, with full color, and with a much better field of view than your monitor.

dude, red/blue glasses are like, 30 years old. We've had full colour 3d for years now, without even needing active glasses.

If I was CEO of Nintendo I'd make the snes with a dvd drive instead of a cartridge slot as a successor to the Wii.  We could make those puppies for $35 in bulk and charge $250 for it and then tell our fans that we couldn't spend $5 to license the dvd patents so they could play dvds because it would just add to much onto the cost of the system and we're trying to save them money.  We would be rolling in money.  Then at E3 we could make a huge speech at our competitors telling them it's wrong to just keep making sequels to existing games.  Then I'd introduce Zelda 10 and Mario 25.  Sweet.

omgwtfbbq said: dude, red/blue glasses are like, 30 years old. We've had full colour 3d for years now, without even needing active glasses.

I think you misunderstood me, I wrote the red/blue engine so I could see what it was like without buying a pair of LCD 3D glasses. There are other ways to do it without LCDs like shutter glasses, but those induce severe eye strain.

My point is that the technology is now cheap enough to do it affordably for a home console user.