Why Won’t Nintendo Develop for Mobile Platforms?

Given the massive popularity of mobile gaming today, doesn’t it seem a bit odd that the company with some of the most iconic video game characters around are seemingly ignoring it? After all, with the average iPhone gamer spending about 15 hours per month gaming on the go, why wouldn’t Nintendo want a piece of this rapidly growing market?

As Ars Technica’s gaming editor Ben Kuchera once surmised, Nintendo would be slitting its own throat if it were to dive into developing for non-Nintendo hardware. It makes sense, too. Sega, who hasn’t been in the hardware business for ten years, wouldn’t stand to lose anything if developing a Sonic the Hedgehog game for the iPhone or an Android device, but if Nintendo were to do it, what would that say about Nintendo’s 3DS, or perhaps even the Wii?

The iPhone and like devices today are extremely powerful, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we could see a game like Super Mario Galaxy 2 running on them with good performance. But, unlike Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo actually profits from the hardware it sells, and currently, that has to outweigh the potential revenue earned if the move to other mobile platforms was to occur today.

On a side note – has there ever been a Super Mario game on a non-Nintendo platform?

I question, though, how long this holding-out can last. Nintendo’s 3DS was launched to a rather lackluster reception, with the company itself admitting that sales were not what it expected. If that’s an on-going trend, can Nintendo hold out for even two or three more years? Sony’s Vita, for example, was announced at E3 a couple of months ago, but even it doesn’t seem to be getting the attention it would have gotten if the same device was released two or three years ago.

Some have expected dedicated mobile gaming devices to die off for some time, and even Sony understood this enough to release what’s a cross between a PlayStation Portable and a regular smartphone. One thing that’s clear is, many people are content with playing games on the go that don’t require anything more than a touchscreen, so where does the dedicated device fit into our future? Or does it at all?