Why Nintendo Has No Interest in Mobile Phones

Though Nintendo has, notably, struck an arrangement with AT&T to provide free wireless Internet hotspot access, the company remains adamant that it isn’t entering the mobile phone business.

“We don’t want to be in the phone business,” Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, told CNN. “We don’t see that as an opportunity. Phones are utilities. Phones are not by definition entertainment devices.”

Moreover, Fils-Aime candidly said Nintendo’s lack of competitive advantage in that market space is why the games maker has no desire to follow Microsoft or Sony into it. “It makes sense to enter a market when you feel you’ve got some sort of competitive advantage,” he told CNN. “From Nintendo’s perspective, we don’t see that we have a competitive advantage in telephony.”

CNN pursued the Nintendo-phone angle noting that some analysts expect smartphones and other mobile devices to cut into the handheld gaming market. Despite that, the 3DS’ launch this past weekend was more successful than either the GameBoy or the original DS’ launch.

“We have no desire to get into telephony,” Fils-Aime said. “We believe that we will earn our way into someone’s pocket without having to offer that (phone capability) as an additional factor.”

Why Nintendo isn’t making a phone [CNN]