Start with the obvious: Nintendo already makes mobile games. Nobody keeps their 3DS tethered to a television, after all. But it doesn't make mobile games for smartphones and tablets.
That may change. The company has traditionally knocked back questions about taking its stable of gaming brands to other manufacturers' devices, but as Nintendo announced its latest financial results this week, there was a marked change of tone in president Satoru Iwata's comments.
"We are thinking about a new business structure. Given the expansion of smart devices, we are naturally studying how smart devices can be used to grow the game-player business. It’s not as simple as enabling Mario to move on a smartphone," he told a press conference in Osaka, according to Bloomberg.
"We cannot continue a business without winning. We must take a skeptical approach whether we can still simply make game players, offer them in the same way as in the past for 20,000 yen or 30,000 yen, and sell titles for a couple of thousand yen each."
What might a winning strategy look like for Nintendo? One place to start is by examining what its two main rivals in the console market, Sony and Microsoft, have been doing on smartphones and tablets, with lessons to learn about several possible strategies.
Make your own hardware (and software?)
The most obvious one first. Sony makes smartphones – it bought back the other half of Sony Ericsson in 2011 and has since released several Android handsets, although the company recently said it was "exploring" a partnership with Microsoft to make a Windows Phone. Sony also makes Android-based tablets, with its PlayStation brand a key part of devices like the Sony Tablet S.
Microsoft? Well, Windows Phone, which has a small-but-growing smartphone market share, and Windows 8 for tablets represent its play in mobile software, and the company also sells its own Surface tablets. It's also about to buy Nokia, to bring a smartphone manufacturer in-house.
Both companies' performance shows that it's incredibly difficult to compete globally with Apple and Samsung on the hardware front, but not impossible to carve out your own slice of the market. A NintendoPhone has the makings of a niche (although the idea has clearly been considered), but a Nintendo tablet may have broader appeal. Not least because the company has two (related) potential angles: gamers, and children.
A Nintendo tablet for kids, with exclusive games and some smart deals for other kinds of apps and content (video and educational apps in particular) could be a very strong product. Twitter-fuelled rumours last November that the company was working on exactly this kind of product had the ring of a hoax, but it's a plausible strategy.
Software-wise, Nintendo could go the Amazon route and "fork" Android to create its own operating system, or follow Sony's strategy of focusing on its own services and games running on the standard Android software. DreamWorks' upcoming DreamTab children's tablet is worth studying for the way it integrates characters – from films in its case – into the operating system.
Take your games to other companies' devices
If Nintendo opts against entering the smartphone and/or tablet market with its own hardware, it could release (or license) some of its games for other companies' devices.
Microsoft has released Kinectimals for iOS and Android, for example, as well as puzzle game Wordament and Ms. Splosion Man from its Twisted Pixel studio. Windows Phone game Tentacles: Enter the Dolphin has also been released for iOS and Android. For now, Halo spin-off Halo: Spartan Assault remains exclusive to Windows-powered device.
Sony has launched a smattering of games for iOS, including free-to-play Ratchet & Clank: Before the Nexus, and Knack's Quest – the latter tying in to PlayStation 4 launch title Knack. The company has also launched an umbrella app called PlayStation All-Stars Island – a partnership with Coca-Cola that includes mini-games based on brands like Uncharted, Gravity Rush and LittleBigPlanet.
That's one possible strategy for Nintendo: smartphones and tablets as a place for spin-offs from its famous brands, to promote console games that remain exclusive to its own devices. It has the funds to roll up a few talented mobile studios and give them their head with some of its characters.
Sony on Android may also offer Nintendo a model to study. It hasn't just released games for its own and other firms' Android smartphones and tablets. It launched a pair of initiatives called PlayStation Mobile and PlayStation Certified.
The first is essentially Sony's own app store for Android devices, while the second is a scheme to certify other companies' Android devices as being compatible with it. Most of the devices on the certified list are made by Sony, but Sharp, HTC, Fujitsu, Alcatel and Wikipad also feature. A Nintendo-run mobile games store on Nintendo-certified devices is a possibility.
Think second screen
Again, the obvious response to the title is that Nintendo is already thinking about second screens and gaming: its Wii U console was built around the idea, even if it doesn't seem to have yet been an enormous selling point. But that's based on the controller that ships with the console. How about using the devices already in millions of gamers' pockets, or on their sofas?
Both Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One had second-screen apps available for iOS and Android when they launched (and Windows devices for Xbox One too, naturally). PlayStation App enables PS4 owners to check their friends' activity, chat, use their device as a keyboard, and browse the PlayStation Store and buy games to "push" to the console.
Xbox One SmartGlass – a new version of an existing app for Xbox 360 – offers similar features, as well as acting as a touchscreen remote control for the Xbox One itself, including browsing the web. Both apps rely on the sensible assumption that a.) gamers will have a smartphone and/or tablet close by while playing on their console, and that b.) that device will probably be made by someone else.
The fun in second-screen apps is partly creative. What kind of party-play game could Nintendo make for Wii U that got everyone in the living room playing on their smartphones, for example? But the second-screening doesn't have to be in the same room at the same time as the console is being played: what might you be able to do on your phone during idle moments in the day that has an affect on the game you play on your Wii U in the evening?
Traditionally, Nintendo would be expected to pursue this kind of thing through its DS family of handhelds, so the strategy may not appeal. But even thinking about the company's Miiverse social network, its Mii avatars and its Image Share service, the appeal of a smartphone and tablet app seems clear.
Or come up with some more ideas...
Satoru Iwata's comments this week make it clear that Nintendo is considering whether its existing strategy is fit for purpose in a world of smartphones and tablets. There should be no shortage of ideas for what to do next, even if some are outlandish.
Perhaps strike an exclusive deal with Apple and launch a proper iPhone MFi controller with a bundle of classic games? Maybe team up with Supercell and turn Animal Crossing into a free-to-play mobile game that manages to make pots of money from in-app purchases without enraging its fans (note: tough).
Swerve gaming for now and make lashings of cash from Mario stickers in popular messaging apps – not such a big leap given Nintendo's previous dabblings in ringtones. Or something else?
Which is where I'll turn this over to you: if Nintendo were to do more around smartphones and tablets, what should it do, and/or what would you as a gamer like to see it do? Or should the company press on with its Wii U and DS-family strategy?
The comments section is open for you to suggest a "new business structure" for Iwata and his colleagues...
• Wii U's failure to wow leads to Nintendo profit warning
