Obviously Nintendo is and has been looking at opportunities on Mobile, but the fact is they are cautious because it could potentially devalue their core business. This may or not may not happen if they were to pursue it, but its the reason they havent jumped in yet. Nintendo can make phenomenal games with a limited number of buttons, so even under the confines of a smart phone, they could still make good games on those devices. Thats not to say that Zelda A Link Between Worlds would be as good on a phone as it is on the 3DS. Mobile gamers care little about advanced control interfaces, they prefer that games be simple, but the dedicated gamer is not put off by such complexities, look how many buttons are on a PS controller, Xbox controller, and even the Wii U gamepad. Not to mention the games that make great use of the touch screen, without letting any buttons go to waste.
I dont know why I have to define things like "core" gamer and "better", I think most people understand that the casual gamer is the Wii Sports gamer, the Angry Birds gamer, the Candy Crush gamer; if you play those games but not more advanced experiences like RPGs, 3D Platformers, First Person Shooter games and so on. The blue ocean market on mobile has a very limited interest in those games. We arent seeing a flood of people going from Candy Crush to Call of Duty. There doesnt seem to be a direct link there at all. Better is relative, its relative to the one writing the post or making the statement, in that case, it was me, and I feel that the control interface on dedicated gaming systems allows for a much "better" experience than on tablets and phones.
I think going forward is going to be tough for all hardware manufacture in the gaming industry. Its become nearly impossible to make much money on the hardware, and seeing as how the biggest game IP's are owned by third parties, they are able to negotiate far better royalty fees these days, and even get the hardware manufactures to throw them money for limited time exclusivity. Honestly, I think on the console side of things Nintendo would be wise to abandon the hardware side of things after the Wii U. Its become so tough to make any money with hardware, and Nintendo could pretty much get all royalty fees waived by one of the remaining hardware manufactures to get their games exclusively. On the portable side, the 3DS still seems to show that there is a pretty large market for dedicated portables, and perhaps one more generation for that still makes sense.
Nintendo is one of the greatest software developers in the world, and thats where their long term future ultimately resides. I think the dedicated gaming device market, even though much smaller, has ultimately proven itself as the more viable option for games with big budgets. For every 1 success on mobile, there are hundreds that never produced more than a few thousand dollars in revenue.
