Must Nintendo Make a Mobile Phone? 155
Hiroshi writes "Earlier this year Engadget uncovered a patent filed in 2001 for a Nintendo cell phone but as we all know, nothing came of it. Now CNET is highlighting the Nintenphone once more, stating that it must be built if cell phone gaming is ever going to get better. Interestingly, CNET Photoshopped a DS Lite with Android and a virtual keypad, and while this probably wouldn't be what a Nintenphone would look like, I can't help feeling like the DS would make an awesome phone."
Re:Doomed to repeat history? (Score:3, Insightful)
I like the ease of 1 device, like the iphone, but the N-Gage was proof that you can do it completely wrong.
Low battery... (Score:4, Insightful)
DS? on a phone? What about the micro? (Score:3, Insightful)
You just gotta figure out where the keypad would go. (and it can't go outside of the d-pad or ab buttons, because that'd affect how you hold it when playing a game)
If you made it thicker to add a slide-out keyboard, I could see it as a cell phone.
Re:No (Score:2, Insightful)
Its not about Nintendo (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Low battery... (Score:1, Insightful)
Idiot.
Cell phone gaming must get better? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe if they don't just make a Nintendo Phone, but rather make a cartridge that you can slap in the DS to communicate with the cellular phone network and add bluetooth compatibility then THAT could be viable. At least if you get the DS Next, you can probably use the same cartridge and never have to worry about switching phones.
But if you're asking people to adopt a gaming platform that they have to subscribe to a monthly service to use, I don't think they'll go for it. As for plugging a game controller into your cell phone, that's something else you have to carry around. Part of what makes video game systems attractive is that the media is removable, you can share games, sell used ones, or rent them. It's also important to collectors and hobbyists that it's something tangable in your hands, the game. Part of what makes a phone attractive is its simplicity, unless you're just throwing money away anyway, and then you're not the target market for this. Or are you? It seems like a waste of money anyway.
Outside of Tetris, gaming + mobile phones probably shouldn't mix.
Won't happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Flip phone? (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean like on the flip-phones that currently make up about 50% of the market?
Game Boy Micro (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)