I think the reason people are obsessed with this is because no matter how good Nintendo's hardware is, or how cheap it is, or how available it is, it can't compete with the smartphone I already own and carry around in my pocket all day.
All else being equal, I'd rather have Nintendo games on my iPhone than pay $1 for a 3DS or a Wii U, simply because I always have my iPhone.
The problem, of course, is that all else won't be equal. Business concerns aside, the games are unlikely to be very fun on a touchscreen. Every fast-paced touchscreen game I've played has been an exercise in frustration and I don't think Nintendo can overcome that.
But if a person hasn't figured that out, or thinks Nintendo can overcome it, then it's pretty reasonable to want their stuff on iOS (or their other mobile platform of choice).
The disconnect that Nintendo of America has done a very poor job of marketing is that you don't need to be bored in public to play a 3DS. Sure, it could be a nice thing to have if you lived in the city and spent 30 minutes or more a day in public transportation, but among adult users (at least in America, where public transportation is uncommon outside of a few major cities), they're much more likely to play it while unwinding at home, while their SO is watching TV or surfing the web on a lazy sunday, while they're on the can, etc. Yet people, even those that love games, don't always realize this, and say things like "I already have a smartphone" or "I don't want to be seen "gaming" in public."
The closest functional analogue to a portable game console is not a smartphone, but a tablet. And while it's very fun to browse the web or watch videos on the couch with a tablet, even the best tablet games are no where near as engaging as the average portable console game.
Nintendo of Japan did a series of commercials to demonstrate this, showing Japanese celebrities relaxing at home, curled up on their couches, playing 3DS by themselves while thinking out loud to the audience. Another featuring the branding of a big pop star, and I'm sure there's many more that I never saw. AFAIK, Nintendo of America hasn't tried to market the 3DS to adults at all, and it's really not doing justice to the cross-generational appeal of many of their products.
Nintendo only really targets two markets, and neither of them "fit" with iOS.
- 3DS owners always have their 3DS, and don't usually own any Apple product, except rarely an iPod Touch. Why? Because they're Japanese schoolchildren, sitting around at recess battling one-another in Pokemon or somesuch. iOS doesn't fit anywhere into that picture.
- Likewise, the Wii U is still one of a long line of "famicom" (lit. "Family Computer") products. All the software written for it is written to encourage local multiplayer, with game balance choices made to cater to family members being those multiple players—thus why the "randomness" of items in Smash Bros, the rubber-banding in Mario Kart, etc. They're games that let younger and older siblings, or children and their parents, have a fun experience together even at disparate skill levels! Again, this isn't something that translates away from the "everyone sitting in the same room", so doesn't do well on mobile where everyone in the family would be expected to own their own iPod Touch or whatever else.
> But if a person hasn't figured that out, or thinks Nintendo can overcome it, then it's pretty reasonable to want their stuff on iOS (or their other mobile platform of choice).
It's reasonable to want it, I guess, but it's not reasonable to expect Nintendo to provide an inferior experience to players that also undermines their business.
I assume people don't think it'll be an inferior experience (unwarranted optimism about Nintendo's ability to produce great touchscreen controls?) nor that it would undermine their business (optimism about how many units they would sell on iOS?).
RPGs (no "real time" control, just navigating menus) are the only genre I can see being able to translate well to touch screen devices. So I could see an iOS Pokemon game doing well, and not a whole lot less.
Thing is, while an iOS Pokemon game would do gangbusters, would it be able to top the 10+ million copies at $40 a pop that Pokemon games (released almost every year these days, it seems) regularly clear, given that they'd have to cut the price considerably (or even make it "freemium") in order to sell to the typical iOS user? And even if it did sell better, would it be worth killing off what is arguably the main driver of 3DS sales and taking an additional corresponding hit on other, unrelated 3DS games?
Unless Nintendo goes totally bonkers, I think their iOS experiments are going to be limited to smaller puzzle titles and the like that fit into the existing "freemium" mold well, making a quick buck and advertising their bread-and-butter properties simultaneously.
All else being equal, I'd rather have Nintendo games on my iPhone than pay $1 for a 3DS or a Wii U, simply because I always have my iPhone.
The problem, of course, is that all else won't be equal. Business concerns aside, the games are unlikely to be very fun on a touchscreen. Every fast-paced touchscreen game I've played has been an exercise in frustration and I don't think Nintendo can overcome that.
But if a person hasn't figured that out, or thinks Nintendo can overcome it, then it's pretty reasonable to want their stuff on iOS (or their other mobile platform of choice).