Wow, thats an amazing turnover such something that didn't even require ongoing marketing. That would've been a good idea, but due to Nintendo's fanbase being made up of mainly 4-15 year olds, to change their product into something which is a phone 'could' have gone down extremely badly;
Nice post, but I would strongly disagree with the part about it selling poorly. If you look at the Sonic games on the phone app markets, google search their sales charts, and they've made over the 12.8 million market profit, that's after development expenses. It seems the MASSIVE trend nowadays is for people to guy buy and download little phone app games than rather just go buy a big budget title like Gears Judgment for $60, most people will rent it or buy it used for $20 a couple weeks later.
There isn't much point in gamers buying games NEW anymore for $60 full retail, games like DMC, which will retail used for $38 in about 6 weeks later. Gamers generally don't have a lot of money, and the economy is in a recession, but these little low budget phone apps are grossing millions of dollars in revenue. Which really suggest their is a huge gaming market, just people don't want to pay much.
Not saying going away from big budget titles or anything, but phone app games and Nintendo's biggest selling franchise "Pokemon" has been tarnished by them due to poor marketing. 1) They fail to build up hype for their games. 2) They fail to give people information about their games pre-launch. 3) They release a sequel for some games about once every 5 years or more. EA and Activision pump out sequels each year, you can see the contrast in companies revenue and market profit. Activision flourishes it's sequels and spams you advertisements on your TV, while Nintendo just assumes you look it up on a game release chart and magically find their release dates.
If you looked at the 2011 Christmas rush release list for Wii compared to PS3 and Xbox, it was laughable. Xbox / PS3 - Asssassin's Creed Revelations, Saints row, Modern Warfare 3, Halo Legends, MvC3 Ultimate, ect... NINTENDO Wii - Donkey Kong Adventures..... That's it... 1 release title by Nintendo on the most profitable time of year, lol!