Seeing as there's the usual Nintendo gloom and doom in the air and dumbass requests for Nintendo to go iOS, I thought about something.

how about a Phone with buttons ala Xperia Play but runs a modified 3DS OS that allows calls and texts, and has a much faster UI due to more ram, and accesses the Nintendo eShop to download games? Think about it, not only does it allow for the perfect gamer phone, but it also means that 3DS gets more games from mobile devs making it a complete iPod Touch-like machine that's a lot cheaper than an iPod and adds more demand. Obviously no exclusive games, make it part of the 3DS family.

thoughts?

Man, it wouldn´t work right now. It would require Nintendo to change their business strategy and structure a lot, something that can be done overnight.

That may be a good idea for the future, for their next device, but I bet Nintendo would better invest in the PC/tablet market than in the phone market

With the way things are going with phone games and such, it looks like we'll end up with something like this soon.
I think one thing is that it's down to battery life. It's fair enough that most public transport have plug sockets and you almost always get a car charger for everything, but then you end up being wired to a wall, which takes away the main appeal of having a handheld that can do everything. Either that, or you can't use it for a period of time because it's on charge.

Sony should have done this with the vita, kudos to Nintendo if they do it first. They don't even have a phone division.

Nintendo has a lot of money in the bank. It is very unlikely they will make big changes soon. In my opinion the biggest changes this year are going to be in the marketing strategies, which seems to be Wii U biggest problem.

In an alternate universe, the Nintendo Phone already exists.

No.

Why are some one here against ninty selling games on ios and android.... a market with billion users not enough for you, you want them to limit their sales to their own phone which would be a sales disaster.

Are Nintendo rich enough to buy a stuggeling phone manufacturer? I don't see them doing this with their current experience, and neither do I see them cooperating too much with others, but it might happen if they invested in it. I think they'll give us a tablet first though.

The whole point of this idea is to make more money while not developing for 3 separate platforms.

We do not want that to happen because smartphones do not have buttons and a lot of us have become accustomed to the second screen experience found on 3DS, DS, Wii U (not having to pause games to access maps and manage inventory). Also, how can you tell for certain that the phone would be a sales disaster?