First of all, I am an absolute fan of Nintendo, I have played all the games since the beginning, had fights over remotes, cursed my friends and familiy over a lost Mario Kart race and spent hours of hours in dungeons with my friend Link. BUT as long as Nintendo is on that trip that they don’t want to get on iOS or Android, they will suffer the same fate as Nokia and Blackberry. Be one of the biggest player in the business, but miss the oportunity to evolve and develop. We all know they can’t keep track with Sony and Microsoft on high level consoles. Yes the Wii was a hit, but the WiiU is far behind of what you can call a hit. They even lowered their annual forecast because sales are so “bad”. So why are they still against porting on iOS or Android? They say that they are a hardware company, they make money out of hardware, but why not shift that? The best and most popular games (beside some exception)on the Nintendo platform are the games Nintendo produces itself. So why not sell these games on those platforms?

“I want Nintendo games to be played on Nintendo hardware”

Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata said, porting on mobile platforms is not profitable in a long term view. Wait WHAT? Really? Nintendo has nearly 40 years of history packed with classic games they can sell. Each by each, year by year. I would download them, heck I would BUY them, I would even pay 10$ if necessary, I mean they are absolute classics! Only thing is, such games are shitty to play on a touchscreen, but hasn’t Apple introduces an API for controllers? Yes they have. And isn’t Nintendo one of the leading manufactures for handhelds? Yes they are! So, WIN WIN! So what is Nintendo waiting for? Lets put that in numbers. (I have no business experience what so ever, this is just me thinking out loud) :

To develop an iOS compatible MFI Controller I would say 500.000$, heck lets give them 1 Mio.

I mean look at this absolutely great concept of Fabio Basile. Something like that would be just amazing And as already said, Nintendo is on of the leading manufacturers of handhelds! I am 100% sure they would make on of the best MFI controllers for the iPhone.

Next up: Games. As already said, they have nearly 40 years of video games history, so lets start at the beginning, the first world wide hit: Donkey Kong! You remember right? The game where you have to jump over barrels to get to the big hairy dude who stole your girlfriend. No need for cool graphics, leave them as they are, no need for fancy features, leave them as they are, I just want to jump over these barrels with my little friend Mario. So lets give them a budget for the game development of again 1 Mio. So what do we have now?

2 Mio of investment.

If they sell the game for 1$, minus the 30% Apple gets, they would need approximately 3 Mio games to be sold to get over the break even point. And I think 3 million units is very little. That calculation is done with 1$ for a game. I would pay 10x more! If they do so and port on iPhone, that news would go viral in no time. BOOM and they would be in every media, every blog, numbers would explode, everybody would want to play that game on their iPhone. And thats only the start.

First year they only sell the classics. Donkey Kong, Mario Bros and so on. Then when the success of these settle, they bring the next master pieces. Kid Icarus, Duck Tales, Castlevania, Metroid, Super Mario Bros 2, Mega Man, oh my god Mega Man, how many hours have I shared with that little guy? The legend of Zelda, oh yes baby, now we are talking!

And these are only NES games! Again thats only the beginning. All these titles would crush the top lists of apps. Gaming on mobile would make sense again.

We have more generations to cover. SNES, Game Cube, Nintendo 64. All of them with their special games. With each of them, also the MFI controllers evolve and also the revenue. Each game a new Blockbuster. For Mario Kart and Mario Party, I am thinking about ad hoc games via bluetooth or wifi, use the Apple TV as a main screen.

So where does Satoru Iwata do not see long term reneveus out of this???? Each generation of Nintendo consoles packed with blockbuster games could easily span over a year or two. So why wait? This would be a easy, nice additional income to Nintendos pockets. Please Nintendo start porting on iOS and Android.

I can’t see why Nintendo is not porting on iOS and Android. It would be the right step so they do not turn into the next sinking ship like Nokia or Blackberry, which missed the oportunity to evolve.