DS Fanboy has dug up what appears to be a patent application of Nintendo for a gaming phone. It was filed last 2001, way before the phone gaming market even started. There are many opinions on this and although it seems Nintendo has dropped this idea altogether and may NOT be aligned with their current objectives, if you’re curious and patient enough, you’ll find a wealth of information within the patent.

Being a programmer myself, let me point out a few:

(1) The device has 2 CPU CORES (can we say DUAL-CORE?). I only have knowledge in the application layer of mobile phones and from that perspective I think phones now only have one CPU which is being shared by both the phone’s applications (which includes games) and the phone’s native functions like calling and receiving. If I’m right, this design is a very ingenious one and could very well be the first.

(2) Judging from the schematics, I think the game architecture and core is similar to that of the GBA. Imagine the GBA micro screen as the screen of your phone. The speed! The color! Amazing.

(3) Some people say it’s a rumor (Does the Google patent library post fake patents?) but from what I know of Nintendo, it’s a company filled with engineers allowed to break barriers and think out of the box. When they were still designing the NES, they had it equipped with a communications port which, at the time of release, didn’t have anything to do with games. People asked what it was and anticipated a new peripheral. It turns out it’s similar to a phone jack. Ninty was planning to hook up the NES to the phone network to allow gamers and their families to buy games OVER THE PHONE.

Digest that. Nintendo was already thinking of a “Nintendo Live”. This was the 80’s - way before the Internet and the concept of online gaming and content was popular. So I would say that this patent/design is not really that far from truth.

But I agree that anything goes - it may or may not happen.