It's actually quite sad that Nintendo has largely avoided mobile(I mean I would to, because I hate art games), because yes thats where a lot of kids play games.
My nieces play Temple Run all the time and I think it's just the damn demo. Same with angry birds and so on. Yet they aren't oblivious to Nintendo, they just aren't that aware of the characters and aren't indoctrinated to care about them. You put like a cheap version of Mario Kart on the phones, they would play the heck out of it and then maybe see the "real version" and then want that. They would at least be actually familiar with the stuff. As a kid I couldn't go to a house without an n64 playing Smash bros, kart, or whatever. I at least know what they are.
I mean yesterday my niece asked me if I had Mario Kart 8 and if it was for a system I own. I told her to shut up and of course I don't have it because Nintendo is trash, but the point is it's not like it didn't look attractive to her. It's just there's no reason for my sister to really buy her a DS or a wii u because at this time the ipad is enough to do the simple thing those things do at her age "kill time".
When she gets older and if she cares about games she'll have no connection to Nintendo and probably buy something else.
I also think this mostly true for her friends. I've been to a few birthday parties and one kid got Assassin's Creed for his bday. Now giving an 8 year old AC is an entire other argument, but if I go back to when I was that age pretty much everyone was given Mario and whatnot because thats what Nintendo was to parents. "Go play Nintendo". Now it's "go play on the ipad". Since Nintendo has no presence there they are missing that audience. Surly they can just throw a cheap Mario Kart game or 2d mario on there and call it a day.
I mean when she asked me about Mario Kart I couldn't even think of a game on the PS3/4/360 I'd want to play with a kid. I could at least think of Smash, Kart, Party, and those mini games from NintendoLand.
But I'd never buy those personally because thier Nintendo games. Come on!