Mario on phones?

After today's financial reports confirmed major losses for Nintendo, there are once again calls for the company to take its greatest IP treasures onto other platforms, such as smartphones and tablets. We've heard this all before, with investors saying similar things when Nintendo dropped the 3DS retail price. It's as likely now as it was then.

As reported by Games Industry, Japanese analyst Nanako Imazu — from brokerage firm CLSA in Tokyo — told the New York Times that he expects shifts in the market to make Mario on smartphones a reality.

Nintendo has to deal with the change and let Mario games be played on non-Nintendo devices. I think it will take at least couple of years to see that.

While smartphones and tablets pose significant competition to Nintendo, Satoru Iwata and others have said that its franchises won't appear outside of the company's own hardware. We suspect that Mr Imazu will be disappointed, but time will tell.

[source gamesindustry.biz]