Yeah, well, that investor is obviously pretty stupid and greedy as fuck.

While investors might keep on nagging on Nintendo to put Mario on smartphones, it wouldn't be much more different than the nagging of today, with the exception that they'd be making money of the few mobile games they actually would have released. Nintendo would have to explain that Mario doesn't fit smartphones, because 1) bad controls (which leads to damaging that property, since it's always had arguably the best controls in all of video gaming), 2) bad controls leads to less sales across ALL platforms, 3) which leads to less revenue, and 4) the smartphone audience is a different audience than the Mario gamers that already exists on Nintendo's own consoles. In reality, I don't think the situation would change THAT much with regards to investors pestering Nintendo.

The difference is that Nintendo actually has games people want to play, Sony's games doesn't have the same kind of pulling force. Sony's 1st party games are more of an afterthought, while Nintendo's 1st party games are front and center.

But if you read the OP you'd realize that I wasn't suggesting that Nintendo should go 3rd party, or that they should put Mario on smartphones.

If you give in to their desires there is no turning back, the pestering would be even bigger and it could potentially become a reality in the end. That would certainly damage their brand, imagine having Mario and other Nitendo franchises on smartphones... The customer would think: "I can play Mario and others in my smartphone... for free! Why would I pay for their gaming console?"

I think Nintendo could put Mario in smartphones without problems. You can make a Mario game where he runs endlessly and he only has to jump. There are lots of ways to fit Mario on mobile, if Nintendo could put Nintendogs or Brain age, Mario would follow suit without delay.

The investors nagging was so hard that Nintendo didn't dismiss that they will use smartphones in their bussiness plans. They will, they just won't put their games on it, just imagine what would happen if they did.

That kind of Mario would suck!

I think Nintendo has to be very clear that they are going after the so called casual audience, which has abandoned gaming devices altogether, and that their aim is to lure a wider audience to their HW - and you don't do that by providing a full game on iOS or android. I don't feel like Nintendo's been clear enough about just how much they earn from HW, and maybe they should be. They should say that putting games on mobile will 1) address a different audience that isn't on ANY gaming device (save for smartphones/tablet), 2) give them a wider brand recognition, 3) drive sales of their HW in the end - which will be the most important point.

Yes, that could happen. It's basically the idea in PS Now and that will probably be the future for all companies (streaming). The handheld unit wouldn't need much power (PS Now will work with Bravia TVs, that are surelly much weaker in processing than a 3DS, maybe even than a PSP). It would be basically a Wii U that works outside (like PS4+Vita).

Nintendo could go mobile by porting the original Super Mario Bros to mobile phones/tablets and make you pay a dollar for each level. Genius idea!

I used Brain Age and Nintendogs as examples of what kind of games Nintendo could make for mobile devices, but I didn't mean that they'd be the only games published on smartphones. I think Nintendo is still creative enough to come up with new, interesting IP's (or even new spinn of old IP's) to make them stick out and be noticed. And the same argument could be made about ALL their games: what kind of success could Nintendo see by competing directly against the games that diminished the value of their home console games? Because that's what's going on right now with the Wii U. According to your argument Nintendo should give up or not put up a fight as soon as there is competition, so why not apply that thinking on home consoles? That's the biggest problem over at Nintendo right now. And putting a select few games on mobile could off set those losses.

They should launch the mobile games at the same time as they launch a new hardware; that would be a pretty strong message saying that they do believe in their HW AND that they're going after casuals, and trying to drive more HW by luring in new costumers. In worst case scenario, only the Nintendo faithful would buy their console, but then that would leave us in the exact same situation as they are in now, or were in in the GC days. Nothing would change, and Nintendo wouldn't need to go 3rd party anyways. The only difference would be that they'd get revenue from mobile games as well, making it even less likely for them to go 3rd party. That in turn would strengthen Nintendo's brand and drive HW sales. They can't be more in a pickle than they are right now.

Like I said in the above paragraph, mobile games could be a way for Nintendo to sustain their HW business. Give the people a taste of what a REAL Nintendo console has to offer, and they're far more inclined of getting it. Right now they're surviving on old costumers, and not creating new ones. Some times you have to go to where the costumers are, so that they will come to you in turn. And creating mobile games doesn't take much resources or man power, so the potential revenue would far out weight the spending to create those titles. And with this revenue they might even be more compelled to create new IP and experiment. Quality over quantity is what I'd argue in this case, even though the quantity wouldn't suffer all that much - if at all. And we both know that 3rd parties are more or less dead on Nintendo consoles at the moment. Even the 3DS is suffering from a lack of 3rd party games, and the Wii mostly got shovelware anyways. Candy Crush Saga is making 800k revenue a day. 800 000. That's 5.6m a week. Imagine Nintendo having maybe 4 games pulling half those figures on mobile. That's more than 10m/week. 40m/month. Why should Nintendo turn their backs on casuals when they seem to be willing to pay good money for cheap games?

That's actually a brilliant idea and I think it would work really well for them without them having to comprise the quality of their console games while opening themselves up to the mobile market. They should make IOS exclusive party, puzzle, mini-game style games featuring their characters and art. Keep them short, simple, cheap and addictive. The funnest, most addictive puzzle game I've played was from Nintendo(Tetris Attack or Pokemon Puzzle Challenge), if they released an updated version for phones god I'd play forever. Wario-Ware for phones I think would be a HUUUGE Hit.

I don't think there shouldn't be any main platformers or main console games though, they can keep that on their hardware and maintain the value of their console. Something like Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 or Smash Brothers on an iphone sounds like the dumbest idea ever and would be a fucking mess.(well mario can just run though on auto and all you have to do is jump) yea that sound even worse. Nothing screams fun like watching Mario run through 3D world and just pushing jump at kinda the right moment. What they can do is promot the hell out of their console and hardware through this mario world app(I imagine it would be called something like that). If they can do ad campaigns on itunes and app stores for their next console game they can be where the people are.

Well, the games shouldn't be TOO fun or TOO addictive, since Nintendo would want the people to actually buy their HW and "real" games as well ;)

A Nintendo network app is all they need. If they ever start putting serious games on mobile that would spell the end for the Nintendo brand name.