I wouldn't mind seeing one provided it has a case with physical buttons included. I don't want physical buttons on my phone cause that makes the phone look weird and ugly. If I am gonna spend money on a Nintendo phone, I want it to look great and not cheap while being able to play Nintendo games.

And of course, they should have both eshop and play store on their phones so that you can buy Nintendo exclusive games from their eshop and third party games from the play store.

But I feel like its asking a lot. Nintendo has never been known for having a premium looking handheld with top of the line specs. Not saying they can't do it but the question is, will they? I doubt it given their history.

And I do think the handheld only version should be priced lower to $200 or less range.

Wouldn't work. This kind of app needs to be in smartphones, tablets or PC's, not in a Nintendo hardware. In other words, the success comes from existing hardware, not new one.

I've kinda thought about that too ... I think it could still look like a sleek/regular smartphone without having to have like 50 buttons. 

The real thing that limits smartphone games from being really playable is the lack of a direction input, touchscreens are ok for touch buttons, but touch joysticks/dpads almost always suck. 

So ok, lets take that home button that every phone has and let it pop up or be a joystick/trackball. There's one big problem down. 

But now you need some buttons, well you could have L/R style buttons on one side of the unit. Functionally even this (joystick + two physical buttons + touch commands) is now enough to play a great number of games. You could have a perfectly playable Mario or Zelda or Mario Kart game now. You could still maybe add a discreet B/A buttons next to the phone speaker on the other side of the joystick too. 

For people who want more control options you could sell a controller that attaches onto the phone. Or they could do the whole slider phone thing that the Xperia Play did I guess. 

Maybe a Nintendo phone BY apple or Samsung... The Galaxy N

Why do people think this is a good idea. They'd fail at the first step.

I agree.  It feels like it's asking a lot of Nintendo to jump into a red ocean hardware market where everyone is locked in an eternal technological arms race with each other.

Depends on what the sales expectations are. If the idea is to compete directly with Samsung and Apple they'd fail of course. 

But if the plan is to just add 10-20 million extra portable hardware units sold to consumers who are only willing to carry around one mobile device with them (and that's a phone) ... well then ... 

If you're a guy who's making a million dollar salary and has a supermodel girlfriend with a huge house and even a nice yacht ... are you a "failure" because Leonardo DiCaprio has a hotter girlfriend and makes more money that you? No, your life is still pretty great. It's all about perspective. 

10-20 million extra portables sold/year would make a huge difference for Nintendo, even if its table scraps for Apple. Not only that but Nintendo would stand to earn a very large chunk of change from licensing fees ... all the Candy Crush/Minecraft/Clash of Clans revenue on a Nintendo phone/NX device ... Nintendo would take home 30% of that. Who even gives a shit if Rockstar or anyone else supports them in that scenario (though they probably would too). 

Honestly, what you are describing isn't a phone or a game experience that I would ever want. Most games, including the ones on android/iOS use quite a few on screen buttons if they are "serious mobile games." Replacing the home button with a joystick/trackball will make the phone start to look weird and ugly. L+R could work but again, A+B button will make the phone look ugly. We legit need 2 joysticks, 4 physical buttons + L+R in 2017 at a minimum if anyone is gonna take this thing seriously as a gaming device.

Hence why they should make it a preimum looking smartphone with front facing speakers and all that jazz but include a case with it that interfaces with the phone when connected that acts like a controller. This way, it will be able to support and play all games that are both made for it and the ones from the Play store while making it feel like a phone when the case is off. You want to play a game? Bam put on the case. You want to use it as a phone and not make it look like an awkward phone? Take the case off!

Here's an iPhone patent with a pop up joystick ... does it really make the phone look that different?

L/R buttons would be discreet, that's not a problem. 

Things like dual analog and all that .... could be offered via a seperate controller. Most people don't need that. Most Nintendo IP would be perfectly playable with a physical d-pad + 2 physical buttons + on-screen buttons. You could make a playable Mario game (2D or 3D), playable 3D Zelda even, Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, Pokemon, F-Zero ... I mean pretty much any and everything if you really wanted to. It would be massively more usable than just touchscreen alone. 

Most people are not interested in playing something like Call of Duty on the road anyway. 

The only reason I sort of like this idea is cause third parties are heading towards that direction. So if a Nintendo handheld device was powered by Android and it has the eshop and Play store, it will have the benefits of having Nintendo games as well as being able to play all the Android games. Now imo, they shouldn't enter an arms race against Samsung and Apple but release a new phone/handheld every 5-6 years. Now that is quite a lot of time certainly but if developers want to make games like Monster Hunter for Nintendo's handheld like they have been doing for so long, they will simply release it on the eshop. But if the developer wants to develop for phones, then they can release the games on Play Store which Nintendo's handheld/mobile will also get.

And most of the games that come out on mobile don't actually use the latest hardware but rather use older hardware to reach the most amount of people so apart from some games, I don't think having a 5-6 year cycle will be too much of an issue. The devs will gain the benefit of having a base system they can develop for which can reach the most amount of users that mainly want to play games provided it is successful.

But of course, theory is just a theory and Nintendo has to execute it perfectly which is where my doubt lies considering their history of releasing premium hardware. So... While I like the idea, I doubt they will be able to execute it like that and there are certainly a lot of moving parts.