With it seemingly fashionable for tech companies to leap across their traditional gadget boundaries and start making cellphones, can we expect a previously gaming-focused manufacturer to echo Google and Apple and bring out a combination mobile/gaming handheld?  That’s exactly what Crave’s Andrew Lim has suggested, and he’s fingering one of the industry’s most innovative players as ideal for the task: Nintendo. 

“Nintendo has demonstrated with the DS and Wii that it understands usability and aesthetics to such an extent that any phone it would produce would not only look beautiful, but would also be extremely usable in terms of hardware and software” Andrew Lim, Crave

While Lim is reluctant to see Nintendo partner with a more cellphone-oriented company in producing such a handset - cautioning that “the final product would most likely be a diluted version of what Nintendo first had in mind” - he perhaps underestimates the flexibility of the Android platform (despite using a screenshot from it in his mockup, above).  Developers keen to differentiate the look of their Android-powered devices will undoubtedly be able to heavily modify its UI and appearance (just as manufacturers with lowest possible cost as their guiding light will be able to leave the interface as Google’s perfectly-workable generic theme); Nintendo could concentrate on harmonising the hardware/software-interface match and leave the cellular complexity to the OHA.

The current DS, of course, is perhaps unsuitable for double-duty as a mobile handset; it would look faintly ridiculous held to the head for calls, and instead you’d likely be pushed toward using a Bluetooth (or wired) handsfree kit.  But a new design - that built upon Android’s technical capabilities and Nintendo’s gaming prowess - could easily sweep the board of gaming cellphones.