Keep in mind that they also sell their classic titles on their own digital service.   Porting over to iOS would harm their own service and cause a serious price discrepency.  

Yeah, pretty baffling in retrospect that most of the big firstparty exclusives ended up on the PS2/3 as well....has Nintendo ever done anything similar ?

The only examples I could think of would be Steel Diver (as a f2p game)....and to a lesser extent the Kirby Collection...

Exactly ! Why should they leave their comfortable 40$ per purchase bed....to enter a highly competetive platform that sucks 30% out of every purchase !

NPD has mentioned multiple times that 3/4 of the sales of the game are on the 3DS and activition mentioned the game passing 1 million months ago, cream sugar from GAF has mentioned multiple times its the best selling 3rd party game, this site has it undertracked

Mario was a phenomenon in the 1980s, it is still a strong brand today

Pokemon was a phenomenon in the 1990s, it is still a strong brand today.

I would be very curious if the biggest mobile games (Angry Birds, etc.) will be strong brands in 2020s. I have a feeling Mario and Pokemon will still be.

While others rise and fall, Nintendo manages to keep its intellectual properties relevant years past when almost anyone else would have burned through them.

Oh, I'm sure it did sell best on 3DS compared to other console platforms.   But to say it's second to Nintendo on 3DS and the top 3rd party software title is flat out wrong.  It sold best of all 3rd party for that week it launched.   Not all time.

And even if it did sell 3/4ths of the 1 million in sales on 3DS, that's only about 750k.  Many other 3rd parties such as Capcom, Square Enix, Sega and Lucas Arts are well above that. 

Let's also note that Angry Birds is by far the largest mobile IP out there and was ported to the easily compatible touch screen interface of the 3DS.   That's just 1 game with a perfectly matched interface.   You cannot reverse the sitaution for Nintendo.   They have multiple IPs of which the overwhelming majority work best with physical interfaces that include buttons.

If Nintendo is so adamant about the specifics of the input methods they develop which drive the development of their games, why in the hell would anyone ever think that Nintendo would port games to a device they not only don't have any control over but has input methods that do not fit their development philosophy?

Those games are already on iOS/Android - for free.  There's no greater price discrepency than that.   Ignoring it doesn't change the fact.  Clearly people want to play those classic titles still.  Many are very well suited to mobile devices and it's money that's Nintendo is leaving on the table.

Whether Nintendo officially puts them on mobile or not people are playing them on mobile.  But I'm sure a good chunk of those people would gladly pay $.99 or $1.99 to play them if they had that option.   As long as Nintendo isn't putting current games on mobile, it's not competing with WiiU/3DS.

If that causes a price discrepancy between mobile on what they are changing on their own systems, then clearly, they are charging too much.   If they want higher prices then add something (hd, new levels) to justify the price and sell those exclusively on WiiU/3DS.  

That's precisely the price discrepency I was referring to. 

And no, that doesn't mean they are charging too much.  Price is a factor of demand.   Demand on the eShop at the current price options must exist or else the games would never sell. That means they are not charging too much.  

What you may be alluding to is the margin beteen cost and the price being high.  That very well could be the case.  We have no idea what it costs Nintendo to write the emulators, port the content, store the content, cost of transactions, etc....  But a high margin is not to be confused with overcharging.   You charge what the market will aceept.

And besides that no one would want to play those on a smartphone.

If they don't support Pokemon games on VC for their original systems, there isn't anyway they'll put them on phones.