Because Nintendo doesn't want to capture the cell phone market and back then, they didn't need to try. They knew that their dedicated gaming consoles were guaranteed money makers and their expansive libraries and market presence more than made up for the lack of functionality. I remember the T-Mobile sidekick. I always thought it was pretty cool. When one of my social worker friends was in college they ended up taking American Sign Language for their second language requirements and they told me about how popular and useful these devices were for the deaf community back then. Since we're talking about functionality and weird designs, do you remember the Nokia 7280 at all? The thing didn't even have a numerical keypad. It was weird.you still can't make a phone call with a Nintendo Switch.