Investors won't be happy until Nintendo starts making iPhone games

Well, get to it, why dontcha? The San Francisco Chronicle reports that Nintendo investors are calling for the massive creator of Mario to make iPhone and Android games ... or else. With the drastic price cut of its flagship handheld system, the 3DS, in less than six months since its release, investors say that it's time Nintendo tries something new, regardless of what it's said in the past.

Recently, Pokemon Co. announced an iPhone game revolving around the ubiquitous pocket monsters, Pokemon Say Tap (pictured). It almost instantly saw the company's stock spike their highest in four months with the assumption that Nintendo might be getting into the mobile games business, according to the SF Chronicle. But the company quickly pointed out that this was not the case, and just as quickly those gains turned into losses.

"They just don't get it," MF Global FXA Securities Ltd. said in a sales note that day, according to the SF Chronicle. "Sell the stock, because a management once feted for creative out-of-box thinking have just shown how behind the times they are."

Nintendo has repeatedly affirmed that it will not develop games that do not use its hardware, which clearly has investors in a tizzy, as the company was recently forced to slash its profits forecast for 2011 by a whopping 82 percent. "Smart phones are the new battlefield for the gaming industry," Masamitsu Ohki, a fund manager at Stats Investment Management Co, told SF Chronicle. "Nintendo should try to either buy its way into this platform or develop something totally new."

But if the numbers--Apple is now the most valuable company in the world, while Zynga is poised to become the most valuable games company globally--weren't enough for Nintendo, will investor complaints be? Well, it looks like price cuts and apologies haven't worked to appease Nintendo's investors (nor has its announced intent on entering the digital goods space), so it appears as if the Mario maker doesn't have much of a choice. [Ed. Note: Remember kids, today's the last day to get your 3DS at the discounted price and with 20 free games at Wal-Mart. Don't walk, run!]

2011's hottest gadgets all have one thing in common...

Games. And those hopelessly addictive casual games, at that. According to an end-of-year poll put together by SodaHead, a leading opinion-based web community, the five best gadgets of this year all provide game entertainment. The website's poll of 962 people declared Apple the clear winner, with its iPhone 4S and iPad 2 taking 39 and 25 percent of the vote, respectively.

Of course, it's pretty clear at this point that the iPhone and iPad game scene is thriving, especially when it comes to "free". Following Apple's empire is Amazon's Kindle Fire with 17 percent of the vote, the Nintendo 3DS winning the hearts of 12 percent of voters and the Nook Tablet scoring 7 percent of the vote.

While the 3DS is billed as more of a hardcore mobile gaming device at the moment, Nintendo promises that more casual games are the way. The Nook Tablet and Kindle Fire, however, have made casual games a major pillar of their strategy since day one, with game franchises like Bejeweled, Words With Friends and Angry Birds available on both devices already.

A sample of just under 1,000 might be considered rather small, but we're willing to bet that more than 1,000 folks would generally agree with the results. A look at any of these devices' sales numbers--well, the 3DS's later numbers--can attest to that. As for 2012, you can likely expect our prediction for 2011 ring even truer: Mobile games will burn hotter than ever. Check the infographic in full below.

What do you think was the best gadget of 2011? If you own one of these devices, what's the number one thing you use it for?