Was this what Furukawa meant by making mobile the third pillar of Nintendo?

We all know that Nintendo’s mobile games make a lot of money. We also know that the company has talked a lot about raising their mobile efforts, in spite of stiff competition. We even know that Nintendo has a strange fascination with Switch and mobile integration apps. However, could all of this be leading up to Nintendo releasing its own mobile phone?

It sounds like a pretty far-fetched idea, but according to industry insiders, Nintendo may be planning just that. The following comes from an article published in Digitimes, about the growing gaming smartphone market:

Despite the fact that gaming handsets are a niche-market segment, other players including Xiaomi, Vivo, Nintendo and Nubia are either strengthening their presence in the market or planning to enter it, said the sources. …There have been speculations about Nintendo planning to launch a gaming handset that can integrate with its Switch consoles, the Japan-based vendor has yet to respond to such speculations.

Given Nintendo’s current stance on mobile, a Nintendo-brand smartphone with Switch integration kind of sounds like something they’d actually try. The company has made risky investments in gaming hardware before, though the results have often been hit or miss. One things for sure, Nintendo is always full of surprises, and only time will tell if releasing their own smartphone is one of them.

What do you think? Should Nintendo seriously be considering releasing their own mobile phone? Let us know in the comments below.