Nintendo dropping the ball since 1999

[Damian79]

I know that Nintendo have made many mistakes but none makes less sense to me than why Nintendo cant partner up with a mobile company and make a mobile phone DS combo.  Are they really that far stuck in the past?

[MCD]

You really don't want that.

[Tasty]

Would you really use a DS Phone instead of an iPhone/Android? You'd be OK with shelling out $200 and then being locked to your funky looking, no apps-having DS Phone for two whole years?

How about we look at all those Vita 3G sales?

3DS does one thing well: play games with hard buttons and a great d-pad and a pretty decent analog slider.

What we really should be asking is why the 3DS's OS feels kind of archaic and why the eShop absolutely blows compared to App Store/Play Store. (The Wii U eShop is a vast improvement, actually, which is saying something.)

[Damian79]

I actually would use a ds phone.  And as for having to pay 200 bucks for the phone, thats what we are paying now .

EDIT:  Also why cant a phone have tactile buttons?  Sony did it before.

[Raban]

I don't think another mobile closed-system is gonna cut it in this day and age. Nintendo might be better off just putting games on iOS and Android if they want to penetrate that particular market.

[MCD]

The N-Gage did it too.

Look, this might work in Japan but it won't do shit anywhere else. Look at Blackberry ffs, they just lost to Windows Phone in the race for the third mobile ecosystem.

Nintendo's only choice is to swallow their pride and release their IPs on iPhone and Android.

[Damian79]

Eh kids need phones too.  If 3DS's sell i believe 3DS phones will sell better.

[Tasty]

EDIT:  Also why cant a phone have tactile buttons?  Sony did it before.

Ask Apple.

And how is Sony doing these days in the phone biz? (Hint: they're behind Huawei with 4.5% marketshare.)

[MCD]

Eh kids need phones too.  If 3DS's sell i believe 3DS phones will sell better.

All kids own iPhones.

Jesus you need to get out more and this is coming from a virgin.

[Damian79]

What ages?  12 and up or 10 and up?  Considering Nintendo's main market is below that...

[Raban]

3DS does one thing well: play games with hard buttons and a great d-pad and a pretty decent analog slider.

I think a WarioWare-style game would be excellent on a touch-device. Animal Crossing could easily work, too.

You're selling Nintendo short if you don't think they could figure out how to make fun touchscreen games, they just need to swallow their pride. Nintendo's hardware sales have already been annihilated, I don't think it'd hurt much more to release a few games on iOS.

[Damian79]

Annihilated?  Really?  They are selling ahead of the DS by a lot.
 

[Raban]

I meant relative to smartphones.

[Damian79]

Exactly. Phones are a necessity while purely gaming platforms are not.

[Tasty]

Exactly. Phones are a necessity while purely gaming platforms are not.

This hasn't ever not been the case, lol.

[Tasty]

Annihilated?  Really?  They are selling ahead of the DS by a lot.
 
(Image removed from quote.)

Clearly the takeaway from this is that Nintendo should ignore what is currently bringing them success and enter a completely different, overcrowded market segment in which they have no experience and are several years late to the game.

Clearly.

[Raban]

Exactly. Phones are a necessity while purely gaming platforms are not.

I don't see how this would help Nintendo make a successful smartphone. It might also be worth considering that Nintendo's utter ineptitude about online infrastructure probably wouldn't bode well for a device that practically streams data over the air at all times.

[Damian79]

So why not shoe horn in the gaming side into something that is a necessity?

[Damian79]

I don't see how this would help Nintendo make a successful smartphone. It might also be worth considering that Nintendo's utter ineptitude about online infrastructure probably wouldn't bode well for a device that practically streams data over the air at all times.

Who says Nintendo have to do anything on the phone side?

[Raban]

I'd reckon Nintendo does.

[Damian79]

i guess you are right.  Nintendo is arrogant that way.  No experience on the phone side decide what the phone side does. :p

[Damian79]

Clearly the takeaway from this is that Nintendo should ignore what is currently bringing them success and enter a completely different, overcrowded market segment in which they have no experience and are several years late to the game.

Clearly.

Compare that to the phone side and that is getting annihilated.

[Tasty]

I'm sure refrigerators are outselling the 3DS too.

[Raban]

I think what Andy is trying to say is that if you were in Nintendo's shoes, what you are proposing sounds like suicide. They're probably counting their blessings that 3DS has turned into such a success, they're not about to risk it all on entering a market that's completely out of their depth.

[Tasty]

I think what Andy is trying to say is that if you were in Nintendo's shoes, what you are proposing sounds like suicide. They're probably counting their blessings that 3DS has turned into such a success, they're not about to risk it all on entering a market that's completely out of their depth.

Yes.

[Damian79]

But I believe even if they can get a portion of that market they still would be better off than what they are doing now.  Risk and reward and all that.

[Raban]

[Damian79]

Basically why should a kid have to carry round both a 3ds and iphone, when they could be merged together?

[Damian79]

I dont have a chart for that, ill keep looking.

[Positive Touch]

*walks in and sees serious responses to a damian79 thread*

[Damian79]

Good thing you dont make threads.   

[Raban]

*walks in and sees serious responses to a damian79 thread*
img

I should know better, but the honest truth is that I'm a masochist

[Great Rumbler]

[Himu]

i am confused.

[Damian79]

What is the story behind that gif?   

[Positive Touch]

  that judge judy gif never gets old

[DCharlieJP]

you know what i would ahve been all over? A DS Micro with flash memory only and the ability to hack i mean download legit GBA/DS software to it.

I mean- i already have this with my DS LL - basically a machine with everything of note from the GBA/GB/GBC/DS/NES as a sort of ZOMG NINTENDO portable machine but if i could squeeze it down in size to something smaller, i'd be all over it.

[cool breeze]

I kinda adore the Micro for how well designed it is and back in 2006 I had no trouble playing on that postage stamp screen, but these days tablets and large screens period ruined my tolerance for smaller screens.  Every once in a while I play the original 3DS or PSP Go and those are tiny compared to the other screens I interact with.  PSP Go is the best balance of function and compactness, but you can't replicate that form with the dual screen baggage.

[Diunx]

This is one of the dumbest ideas I have ever heard.

[Damian79]

Why is that the dumbest idea you ever heard?

[Damian79]

Fair enough.

[Joe Molotov]

[Fifstar]

I kinda adore the Micro for how well designed it is and back in 2006 I had no trouble playing on that postage stamp screen, but these days tablets and large screens period ruined my tolerance for smaller screens.  Every once in a while I play the original 3DS or PSP Go and those are tiny compared to the other screens I interact with.  PSP Go is the best balance of function and compactness, but you can't replicate that form with the dual screen baggage.

Yeah, I tried to play Advance Wars on my GBA SP 3 weeks ago and I couldn't believe that I could play on this for hours in the past. Obviously the quality suffers due to it being frontlit but just the size felt so tiny that I couldn't play on it (and my smartphone isn't even that big).

[radioheadrule83]

I don't particularly need another phone, but I wouldn't mind if Nintendo tried to make their devices more multifunctional and easier to develop for. Their new dev headquarters might help ensure that future handhelds and consoles share better eco-systems. I love things like Miiverse, but I think Nintendo are pretty bad at OS design. If they are honestly going to come up with more weird menus with unnecessary schmaltzy music for everything, I'd rather they just fork Android like Amazon did and make app porting really easy. That way we get the best of both worlds... good quality game content that remunerates developers properly, but a non-game app environment that invites clever, cheap and innovative apps -- that anyone can develop for.

I have an SLR so I don't buy compact cameras anymore, but if I were buying one and weren't going for a Canon Powershot, similar Nikon or Lumix type thing, I'd probably try something like this for the functionality of it:


A 3DS that anyone could develop for, half decent cameras on board and 3G for networking / spotpass anywhere - would have been fucking amazing.

[MCD]

Flip phones are still a thing in Japan so if Nintendo were to do this, it will be this most likely.

[radioheadrule83]

Flip phones are still a thing in Japan so if Nintendo were to do this, it will be this most likely.

Remember when this was kind of cool?



Makes me feel old

[Damian79]

Fuck, I hate ninthings that want Nintendo to do some stupid shit just to get popular. Especially when it's stupid shit like a mobile phone DS... I mean what the fuck? Do you even give a shit about games or are you just interested in seeing some shithole company make money?

Or maybe i would buy it if they offered one.  For me it is about travelling light, i dont like the fact that i have to carry both a 3ds and a phone.