Phones "not in our wheelhouse" says Nintendo

27 May 2009 18:08 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Wikipedia claims that "a wheelhouse is a prehistoric structure from the Iron Age found in Scotland", but we somehow doubt that's what Reggie Fils-Aime, president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, meant when denying the development of a Nintendo phone.

“Telephony is not in our wheelhouse” he said, “it’s not something I anticipate us getting into". However he then added "We do see value in an always-on connected state, (...) it’s something that has value down the road".

Many commenters have suggested that the size and portability of Nintendo's DS handheld would lend itself well to either a VoIP client or even a full-fledged cellular handset.

Many other tech companies have recently entered the telecoms market, including Acer, Asus and most notably Apple. Meanwhile, Nokia's moving the other way, announcing that it's looking into building laptops.

What tech brand would you like to have a phone built by? We'd pay good money for a Korg-built phone/synth/fx combo device. Let us know your dreams in the comments box.

Via: bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phones, Biz, Nintendo, Gaming