Nintendo: Spin Attack or How They Win?

Moises writing about the three lingering problems plaguing Nintendo these days, and what he believes are the best solutions to those issues. In the last point under problem #2, “Nintendo isn’t simple anymore”, Moises introduces a concept he discussed with Horace on the eighty-third episode of The Critical Path, The Analyst Taxonomy: the idea of a Nintendo phone.

“If Nintendo is actually serious about staying in hardware, they should be developing a phone. That the most profitable gaming platform (mobile phones) completely lacks Nintendo software is bizarre.

“Their tablet platform already exists, and is attached to their set-top box. The same VirtualConsole-scale games could run on a phone with physical gameplay buttons, just as they do on the Wii U GamePad and the 3DS. They already make a mobile-scale OS, and have been doing so for years. Their classic games just don’t work on phones that have no physical controls. If anyone can truly break through with a smart gamerphone, it would be Nintendo, but they show no interest whatsoever in this space.”

Throughout the article Moises drew a number of parallels between Nintendo and Apple, culminating with the suggestion that Nintendo come out and an offering not unlike the Apple TV to close the piece. As I said in The 8-Bit Nintendo Phone, such a comparison is not only apt but also very appropriate given the similarities between the two. I can only hope that those similarities extend beyond Nintendo’s aptitude for hardware and software creation to the ability to disrupt existing markets with revolutionary new products.