Dear Nintendo,

I have been a Nintendo fan ever since I was seven years old. It was when I was seven that my parents moved into a new neighborhood, and on the day we moved in, the first new friend I made asked if I wanted to go back to his house to play Nintendo.  I had no idea what a Nintendo was at that time, but from the first moment that I sat down on his living room couch, controller in hand, to play Super Mario Bros., I was hooked.

Sure, I have owned other game consoles. There was that time in college where in a Gran Turismo-obsessed stupor I purchased a Playstation, and if the Neo Geo AES had not been so damn expensive, I would have also had one of those. But for the most part, I would consider myself to be a loyal Nintendo customer.  When I was in elementary school, the NES was the system to have, and of course, one had to have a subscription to Nintendo Power. One of my good friends at the time had a Sega Master System. His dad was a gadget nut who bought it because technically, the specs were better, and he was very much into specs. I actually felt a little sorry for my friend, as there were a lot of games not available to him that we as NES owners could enjoy. Afterburner and Shinobi, while they were decent, just could not hold a candle to the likes of Megaman 2, Super Mario Bros. 3 and Ninja Gaiden.

I still regularly play my original NES, and I also have my original Gameboy Pocket (which also still works), a Gamecube, a Wii, and two DS Lites (which my kids use). I have always viewed Nintendo as an innovative company, and in my opinion, the hardware Nintendo manufactures has always been second to none in terms of reliability and ease of use.  Furthermore, the game library for each Nintendo system has been nothing short of astonishing.  While the third-party titles for each system were good, it seems as though the best games for each system were those titles developed in house by Nintendo, using characters they created.  In fact, I see Nintendo as the Disney of video games, as Mario, Luigi, Samus, Link, Donkey Kong and a host of other characters are undoubtably beloved by millions throughout the world.

With regard to the current generation console, I absolutely love my Wii.  My kids have also fallen in love with Nintendo’s cast of characters.  We also use our Wii to stream Netflix, and I particularly love the Virtual Console, as I am a sucker for nostalgic games and have a 4GB SD card full of them.  Praise is due where praise is due. The Wii is a hit at our house. Furthermore, I am excited about the upcoming Wii U.

However, on the handheld front, mobile phones (Apple with iOS and the slew of Android phones, in particular) are eating Nintendo’s handheld offerings for lunch.  While the DS Lite was innovative for its time, it was introduced when mobile phones were mostly “dumb” and is long in the tooth. With regards to the 3DS, please take this next statement as a bit of constructive criticism: it is absolutely deplorable.  The 3DS, in my humble opinion, is a piece of headache-inducing garbage with an overpriced library of games. From a financial and entertainment perspective, especially in a tough economic environment, it is just not a good value.  I was truly excited about the 3DS when it was first announced, and I played with one extensively in a Best Buy a while back with the intent that I would get one.  I came away with a humungous headache.  In my opinion, the 3D capability is a gimmick, and I believe that customers see right through it, as evidenced by the low sales figures.

The larger issue, however, is that even if the 3D effects did not give me a headache (and I fully realize one can turn this feature off), I personally prefer my iPhone for handheld gaming. The graphics are just as good if not better than that of any of the DS systems, the titles available are vast and range from free to very inexpensive, and the device itself is much more versatile. The iPhone is a tiny pocket-sized computer after all. Why then, as a guy with only a few pockets in which to stuff things while on the go, would I carry around two devices, when one (my iPhone) does it all? Others also tend to agree, as evidenced by this report. Even the market for kids is eroding, as the iPod Touch is a phenomenal gaming device, perfect for a kid.

So what should Nintendo do about their slumping handheld sales? First, reverse the earlier decision that Nintendo’s president made when this issue first came to light and port a few titles over to iOS. There is a lot of money to be made from this. People already jailbreak their devices and install roms, why not cash in by making your ports the best? Maybe start out with a few of the “classics” and go from there. At least it would boost the bottom line. If that is successful, then gradually exit the handheld hardware business. Concentrate your efforts on the home console and make the Wii U into the must have set top box.

In conclusion, please consider this: The iPod only really took off when Apple finally ported iTunes over to Windows. While I realize that the iPod is a hardware device and I am encouraging Nintendo to gracefully exit the handheld hardware business, the similarity here is that Apple had to go where the people are, and the unfortunate reality is that the people are increasingly buying smart phones. I think the portable gaming business (making the hardware) is a sinking ship (or as Nokia famously stated, “a burning platform”), as the mobile phone is here to stay for the reasons I mentioned above. It only makes sense to focus on making great titles and eventually ditch the hardware overhead.

Regards,

Steve