Nintendo rules out mobile phone

Ben Woods

Nintendo has declared that it has no interest in producing a handset of its own at this time

Published on May 28, 2009

A statement from the president of Nintendo has quashed suggestions that the gaming giant will be moving into the mobile business anytime soon.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo America, yesterday gave a statement to the New York Times saying, “Telephony is not in our wheelhouse. It's not something I anticipate us getting into.”

Rumours of a Nintendo phone have been around for quite a while now, with patents for a device going back as far as 2001, but this latest statement would seem to fairly unequivocally state Nintendo's mobile aspirations.

This isn't to say that they have ruled out the possibility of including 3G connectivity in upcoming portable gaming machines though.

That seems to be that for the Nintend-obile, for now at least, but it does make us wonder if Sony has telephony plans in the PSP's wheelhouse. Time will tell.