They should have waited for some decent games on the 3DS before releasing it-- there are plenty of good ones in the pipeline. They just had a terrible launch lineup.
They could probably have a quite nice revenue stream if they ported old snes titles kind of like how sega is with genesis (although hopefully not as poorly) I don't personally think that would threaten their 3ds or wii. They could probably get away with square-enix prices for things like mario kart, zelda, starfox and super mario world. I don't really think much of Nintendo since the wii but I still like some of their old Snes stuff.
Well, there is a virtual store for the 3DS, which is supposed to have some old gameboy and GBA games on it. And they did release some remakes -- Star Fox, Zelda, etc. The problem is that remakes are pretty much all they did. They didn't make anything original.
I actually really can't imagine having much fun playing Nintendo games on an iPhone due to the lack of a real controller. They'd be about as good as those Sega ports, which isn't saying much. Now if they were to start making games *for* the platform - designed for it - then that would be a lot more interesting. Having said that, they could rework some of their old games and have hits. For example, Kirby's Dream Course would be a good fit with reworked controls. I'd buy that for sure. In any case I really doubt Nintendo will ever do this, investors be damned.
Kirby's Canvas Curse and Mass Attack already use touch screen controls while Kirby Tilt N Tumble used an accelerometer. All of those game could be ported without any modifications to the control scheme. I could see that franchise being quite popular on the iPhone, but it'll never happen.
If they ported some of the older Pokemon games (leaf green era?), and put a premium price on it ($10-15, like Final Fantasy Tactics...maybe even $20), I am sure it would have huge success on the appstore. And they could still keep their handheld's value by only releasing the new generation on the 3DS. Not that this would ever happen...
As much as I love Apple, I love Nintendo even more. I hope that day will never happen. Nintendo games should always remain special and exclusive. They will. But I can imagine already tons of negative review and people whining about price.
Nintendo porting their games onto other platforms would make buying any of their consoles or handhelds redundant. Short-term gain, long-term loss.
QFT Unfortunately Nintendo is stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are good with innovation, but they need to cater to the market which apple has control of.
100% Agree! Only the retro game could work Just imagine on your iPhone: Super Mario World, Zelda 3...
The 3DS has it's own eStore where it sells classic titles and such. On their store they are able to get away with selling their old games for 5 bucks a pop. Putting their old classics on the iPhone might net them some money, but it would also stop some people from buying a 3DS to play their old favourites on the go (I can't imagine someone buying a 3DS just for that, but still). Plus on the iPhone they would face the problem of rampant piracy. Either way, after jailbreaking my iPod Touch and putting emulators on it, I can safely say that most of Nintendo's back catalogue does not work well with touch screen controls anyway (It's nearly impossible to make accurate jumps in Mario with virtual buttons). Iwata already said that Nintendo games won't be appearing on the iPhone while he's in charge, so I'm proud of Nintendo for sticking to their gut. The 3DS may have had a terrible launch, but it's beginning to pick up due to the price drop and after Christmas they're definitely gonna pick themselves back up.
Piracy is hardly rampant for iOS. Only 10% of users are jailbroken, and then only a small segment of those users even pirate. The DS also had a pretty big piracy thing going, too-- which I'm sure the 3DS will have, too, eventually.
Thanks to Nescaline and Apple, I've had Nintendo games for over a year now on my iphone and ipad (without jailbreak mind you)
Pretty much a Nintendo phone is the only realistic possibility here. Nintendo undercutting their own hardware efforts by selling their software on various other platforms, not going to happen.
I love Nintendo, but i've always wondered HOW Gameboy was always best-selling gamesystem in the world. Even my GBA was without backlit display, but Nintendo-approved games has always great gameplay. Today is pretty different situation with DSi ware games and other apps, but they're probably right, i have iP 3GS and MANY games, and MOST of convertions is unplayable, except some adventure games. Simply glass is not good for many genres. Another thing is battery life, i have some CPU-heavy apps and with iP 3GS i can play probably 3 hours. With iP 4 maybe little more (including wifi on). And in Japan is Nintendo still very strong AFAIK, because japanese people doesn't like all-in-one gear like iPhone sure is
As much as I have a lifelong love of Nintendo, I don't see the average American consumer accepting the Nintendo brand as a serious cellphone company. Of course, they do have the capacity of using a different name for their "serious" hardware but overall I doubt at this point Nintendo is prepared to make such a radical shift, despite the investors. You are right about porting their software being extremely counterproductive :I
