With Googles recent announcement of the Pixel, the move to take full control of the Android platform is well under way. I have been screaming that this was comming for the last 5 years, and have absolutly condemned Sony and Nintendo for their decision to not bring out phone versions of the Vita and 3DS. On the Sony side it is even more rediculous in the fact that they make phones and have thousands of patents, and yet abandoned Vita to instead loose billions on Android. Now the Xperia line once a brand that sold 40 million devices a year, has dropped to the point that they only expect to sell around 15 million this year. 15 million could have easily been achieved every year if they had continued to release Vita revisions, and it would have made them billions as all users would be within their ecosystem.

With that said, now is the time to make the move. Pixel is going to be the out right dominate phone in Android land. Samsung is in seroius trouble with the Galaxy line, but they where at least smart enough to see this coming and have the Tizen as an escape from Android. Now Sony and Nintendo need to make their move to stay relivent in mobile.

As I have said a million times, they need to use the same method Sony is using to get the PS4 into the PC and cable industry. They need to build the ultimate gaming phones, that bring gaming experiences that Apple and Google can not offer on their devices. Then they have to set realistic expectations. They will definitly not have the app support of iOS or Android day one, so only the most core gamers will adopt. That is still a good size market, and both companies can easily pull in 50 million consumers in the 1st 3 years. 

After the 1st 3 years, both companies, can start to get a bit more serious about taking new market share, beyond the hardcore gamer. A mid cycle refresh, now built on a 3 year old mobile OS, which has much more app support, will sell like wildfire to the core market. A new broader market version of the device should be made along side the game centric version, to help get the slab phone market over to their side. And, of course, a Handheld only version of the device would be available in each iteration for the gamers that don't want to mix phone and gaming. 

From there on the cycle continues. As times goes on, they will have nearly app parity with iOS and Android due to the 100M+ strong userbases of each platform, and sales will continue to rise as people want a phone that shares everything between their home computer (NX or PS4) . Both companies should will easily be able to carve out a following that is equal to or greater than the best consoles they have ever produced. With users doing everything within the PlayStation and Nintendo ecosystems, the revenue and profits from this niche part of the market would be astronomical. 

The mobile phone market is an incredibly oversaturated market. Any new competitor will have to suffer a lot in order to get any kind of marketshare, and gaming is not the key element here. Mobile gaming is big due to a series of elements that make it different from regular gaming, and even then, it's not the element that pushes the market (social interaction, multimedia, internet browsing...).

If Sony and specially Nintendo had to push their own mobile brand they would face way more trouble than it's worth. Sony at least has the Xperia foothold there, but Nintendo has his software and IPs wich, while highly successful in a mobile environement, would not be enough to make people choose their phones over others.

And let's be real. If Microsoft, with all its power, influence and money, has not been able to make Windows Phones something popular, what can Sony and Nintendo do?

"Pixel is going to be the out right dominate phone in Android land. Samsung is in seroius trouble with the Galaxy line"

Lol wut? How on earth did you come to that conclusion? Pixel isn't even targeting Android market share and even if it were, it won't make a dent on Samsung's Market share just like the Nexus line didn't do anything.

Anyway, mobile is a coin flip that is dominated by both Apple and Samsung. All other companies are losing market share either to them or against each other. The only way to succeed is to have something that will truly set the device apart from the rest while ensuring that it doesn't look terrible. And of course, they gotta market the hell out of it. Its hard to predict if either will be successful or if either will even give it a go but I would say Nintendo with their IPs is in the best position as long as they price it right. But even then, it is essh worthy. We shall see.

Two Things,

1) Sony has no foot hold with Xperia. It is loosing them billions, with no hope of profits in the future, and is a brand that is on its way to selling less than 10 million units a year.

2) Why would Sony and Nintendo succeed when Microsoft failed? Simple, they are bringing something new to the market. Microsoft tried toenter the market as another me too slab phone. They did not capitalize on any of their assets,a dnt hey entered way to soon. Finally, it is not over for Microsoft in mobile. Once UWA builds a massive catalog, they will be back, and the next phone will have amazing app support, and be backed buy Xbox for games, and a much better Cortana and Bing. 

Pixel is not Nexus. Pixel is Google in full control of the Hardware and the OS. They are going to make Pixel the only choice on Android, with built in functionatly, that is only available on Pixel. All Google Play Store software will be optimized for Pixel, and the rest will be good luck. Samsung was smart enoug to see this coming and started Tizen a few years back, as a way to move on after Android. 

The big key to Sony and Nintendo entering the market is their home consoles. Sony especially can build the device right off the back of PS4. A new handheld and Phone that runs all PS4 software at 540p and checkerboard upscales to 1080p would be an awesome device, and would have home and mobile PlayStation working together to build a massive userbase. This is the way they can get support for Android and iOS ports for banking, trading, home security, fitness, etc., etc. apps on the devices.

The thing to remember is that they don't have to light the world on fire. They still make consoles even though they only sell 20 million a year. Windows PC sells 300 million unit s a year. However, consoles are specialized computers that have a focus on gaming and entertainment, and bring in billions even on the very small number of sales. 

In that same light. If Sony and Nintendo could move 20 million units a year compared to the 200 million iphones, then they will be doing just fine. In fact more than fine, becuase the profit per customer on 20 million phones would be substantialy greater than on 20 million handhelds.

Still does not answer the question of what could Sony and Nintendo do in regards to making their own phone and/or mobile OS. If the Xperia is as big of a loss as you describe it, why would Sony try to push their own brand of phone even further? Like I said, gaming is not the key to make a phone successful, it's just one of the many elementd to take into account with them. The reason why mobile is hurting handhelds so much is because parents can now get a cheap gaming device (that the kids would need anyway) that has a giant backlog of free to play and serves as a multimedia/internet browser device. Nintendo can push their mobile offerings into android or IOs, but if they tried to lock the market with their own closed OS or phone, it would fail.

And about Microsoft's UWA system. Why would the backing of XBox Live games be that much useful? I doubt many phone users care about the kind of games you could get on XBox Live, and many XBox Live users would rather get their games on much more powerful hardware.

Wow... just wow. Please someone bookmark this thread so we can marvel in a year at Pixel''s 1% market share any Sony''s announcement of leaving the smartphone market.

Well to be fair, if you compare both of those, then Pixel did win.... technically.

This is a strange thread, just tagging for a read of others replies to this "logic" but I'm interested in the thought behind it but not so interested in getting into the debate myself.