The Legend of Zelda on iPad/iPhone/Droid Phone?
Posted on August 24 2011 by Legacy Staff
Recently, Nintendo investors have been urging Nintendo to get into the mobile gaming market. This seems to be mostly in response to the poor numbers of the 3DS and its recent price drop. So the question is raised, should Nintendo jump into the mobile gaming world? The folks over at Nexux404 think that Nintendo should put NES games into the App store and Market.
Chris Kohler of Wired thinks that not only would this be a bad idea for the big N, but that Nintendo won’t do this, despite what their investors are saying. Their older games, like the original Legend of Zelda, could be easily ported to work with the touch screen interfaces of the iOS and Android devices. But is Nexus404 right or is Chris Kohler? Should Nintendo jump on the mobile gaming bandwagon? Has the lackluster performance of the 3DS been a result of the mobile gaming world pushing hand held gaming toward extinction? Jump in to find out my thoughts.
I am a proud owner of an Android phone and I play Angry Birds and Tetris on my phone when I’m bored, but do I think that my Android phone could replace my 3DS? Sprint recently came out with the Evo 3D that has a similar glasses free 3D display to a 3DS. My opinion is that this phone was a direct response to the Nintendo 3DS. I was a first day adopter of the 3DS as well as a first day purchaser of Ocarina of Time 3D. But I wouldn’t want to play OoT 3D on my phone. While I get what Apple and Google are trying to do by broadening the appeal of their products with gaming, that doesn’t mean that Nintendo should do it too. As Chris Kohler points out in his article, Nintendo has always been a risk taker in the realm of innovation, but cautious in adopting new technology.
Would I play Super Mario Bros. on my phone, probably. But I don’t know if I would want to play The Legend of Zelda on it. I think that the landscape of mobile gaming is about games you can pick up and put down in an instant. The idea is you’re waiting in the lounge of a doctors office and you don’t want to read one of those Newsweeks from 1998, so you bring up a little game that you can stop at a moments notice. Zelda doesn’t fit that formula. If you’re playing Zelda II on your phone and the nurse enters and says, “the doctor will see you now”, you will probably continue to look at the screen and mutter, “okay, just a second.” and continue playing until you reach a room where you can take a breath. I think people don’t understand that that is not the same experience as Angry Birds. Just because a game was 8-bit and came out 25 years ago doesn’t mean that it should be available on anything with a screen; all so Nintendo can make a dollar or two.
What do you think? Am I way off, would you gladly play Zelda on your phone? Should Nintendo listen to their investors and start licensing NES era games to the mobile gaming community? Or should Miyamoto spend time creating new Nintendo products for mobile devices? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments!
