Investors push Nintendo to start making games for iPhone

With Nintendo sales plummeting, investors are urging the company to jump ship and partner with Apple in an effort to remain competitive.

Nintendo, which gained mass popularity in the '80s, is staggering behind in the video game industry due to overwhelming competition from Facebook and Apple iPhone. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata is being urged by the brand's investors to partner with Apple in order to prevent the multinational corporation from losing market share to new competitors. Iwata, however, said he has no intention of producing Nintendo games for any products except for its own. But with the underwhelming sales of the Nintendo 3DS, investors are encouraging Iwata to reconsider his release strategy. Fund Manager Masamitsu Ohki recommended the corporation transition to the smartphone industry, which is currently the lead contender in the gaming industry. According to Bloomberg, Okhi believes "smartphones are the new battlefields for the gaming industry," and that "Nintendo should either try to buy its way into this platform or develop something totally new." While Iwata does not seem too keen on the idea, the benefits of such a transition are evident. On July 6, Pokémon Co., a former unit of Nintendo, announced plans to design a game for Apple's iPhone and Google Android. As a result, Nintendo saw a noticeable increase in its shares, but the corporation failed to take advantage of the opportunity. Continued behavior like this, however, will only prove detrimental to Nintendo's performance. On July 28, the company reduced its profit forecast by 82 percent, while Facebook's 'Farmville' reached nearly $600 million in sales last year and Rovio's 'Angry Birds' has been a huge success. Nintendo, in the meantime, is counting on reducing the price of its future releases in order to climb back to the top.