Nintendo owns the portable gaming market. They have since they created it with Game & Watch in the mid-’80s and then revolutionized it with Game Boy in 1989. Many challengers have risen and fallen over the 18 years since.
But as I predicted the day the iPhone was released, a reckoning is due between Apple and Nintendo in the coming years. As GigaOM reported today, Nintendo has filed a patent for a tilt-sensitive handheld console (a perfect companion to the motion-based Wii). Meanwhile, the New York Times claims Apple is stealthily adding game functions to the iPhone. There’s nothing stealthy about it. You create a portable device capable of gorgeous graphics, pristine audio and driven by a multitouch interface, you’re already there in the first place.
Let’s go back to the prediction from Jan. 9, shall we?
And multi-touch in iPhone is significantly more flexible — it’s made to interpret complex gestures with more than one point of input. There are a number of DS games that could easily be adapted, and it’s just made to host a new rhythm or music game that would require drumming two spots at once. It’s not a threat to the DS, because its price-point is so much higher. It is a threat to crappy games for cell phones, which often cost $6 and suck.
More interestingly, this could begin to threaten Nintendo down the road. The iPhone and its interface are extremely high-end today. By the end of the year, Apple could replace its traditional high-end iPod with one driven by the new iPhone interface and screen and offer it for the same price those iPods sell for today — and even boost the hard drive size, too. Suddenly, you have the world’s premiere media player and rising games star in a $250 package. That beats the PSP any day and hounds the DS tomorrow.
Sounds good. Anything else?
That’s my prediction of the day: As the iPhone seizes the high-end of Apple’s consumer electronics products, the iPod becomes the ultimate PSP-killer, with an interface the DS can’t quite match without the need for a stylus. Tell me you wouldn’t buy that. I dare you.
I’m sorry. Sometimes the smug just gets everywhere.
256 responses to “To Reiterate: iPhone And DS Will Go Head-to-Head”
i wouldnt buy that at all.
i wouldnt buy that at all.
Seems to be a period for gimmicks. Touch-screen/motion-sensitive is all the rage. And gamers don’t like gimmicks (hence all those Wii sales to non-gamers)
It’s still a phone, with an iPod in – you’ll never sell that to people who want good music quality or decent battery life, you’ll never sell it to people who just need a solid phone… and now to try sell it to gamers? They’re not stupid, this is a gadget for the first-on-board tech crew and them alone.
Still, it’ll be fun to watch the major companies thrash it out…
Thanks for the post. Your logic makes complete sense and the bringing together of relevant threads adds real value.
But why do bloggers have to say things like “as I first predicted…”. Sure, there’s an argument to say it’s a good device to link to previous stories, but it always sounds so ego-centric and self-promoting – a bit like Rap artists.
Don’t apologise for being smug – just don’t be smug.
Trampus.
Playstation has kept more-or-less to the standard hand control throughout the various console generations, and has mainly concentrated on the games. Perhaps if all the competitors followed their example instead of bickering like a lot of spoilt kids, then maybe a standard consol could be designed between them and then their efforts could be directed toward the games. After all, you can have the best console in the world, but it is useless if the games are ‘rubbish’ … have a nice day :o)
What planet are you on exactly?
You are misled. The success of a console has ALWAYS been about the games avaliable. Your iPhone could have the most gorgeous graphics, surround sound, multimedia functions around, but it would never draw people where it matters, content.
Hardware is nothing without software. For any gaming platform to be successful it requires a “killer app”. Apple know next-to-nothing about games or their development and I doubt very much if they could produce titles with the simple elegance of Dr Kawashima or the playability of New Super Mario Bros.
No one in their right mind would buy a Mac as a games machine.
You mention that Nintendo’s killer apps would be easily to port to the iPhone- that may or may not be the case, but they aren’t up for sale!
Why should I buy a games machine with no must-have exclusive titles? A compromised games machine that has no d-pad or joystick? The DS’s Touch Generation games only account for a small portion of the titles available for it.
I wouldn’t buy it. My mp3 player has 4Gb of storage space, it’s tiny and light- when I cycle I can hang it around my neck. The iPhone is cumbersome in comparison. My DS Lite is a dedicated games console with a decent sized screen and a massive back-catalogue of great games- many of which are 1st party titles. Why would I swap either for an iPhone?
Whenever people talk about convergence of technology, I recall those crappy TV/VCR combos that were doing the rounds at the end of the 80s. No one liked them; they restrict choice.
On the other hand, Internet telephony is already possible on the DS, which is pretty cool- it doesn’t compromise the handheld’s status as a games machine (in fact it enhances the DS version of Pokemon) and it’s free!
Like you said yourself, handheld gaming rivals to Nintendo have come and gone, and the iPhone will be no different. Nintendo have been doing this for years, have the customer base, the game developer support, and the track record that not even Sony could match with the PSP. To think that a mobile phone masquerading as a games console (ngage anyone?) will be credible competition to the DS and it’s tilt-inspired successors is pie in the sky thinking at best.
$0.02
i like cheese… anyways go iphone!!! COme on nintendo!!,, sony-u got served
Nintendo has nothing to worry about, even if the iphone is reduced in price and is penetrating the market. They have always had the belief that the focus of a handheld gaming device should be to play games. This is why the psp is not doing so well as a multimedia device. Yes the iphone is better at playing music and video due to its internal hd, However, i think that at the moment it has been proven that multi function devices such as the Nokia engage can not succeed in the handheld game market. By the time the price drop and next genration of iphones appear, Nintendo will aready have a new handheld gaming device .Its not just the hardware, but software is very important to the consumer. Nintendo is also a content developer that produce well loved game franchises, that is also a challenge to overcome when competing with them in the handheld space. So I don’t agree with your point of view. Apple have a lot of work to do to prove that the iphone is a great gaming device not just to consumers, but also the big game publishing companies who can produce great games for it. At the moment Nintendo produce the highest quality games for the DS, which will never be released on any other handheld. I think Apple will have a hard time competing with the PSP let alone the DS in terms of playing highy interactive fun enjoyable games.
Tell me you wouldn’t buy that. I dare you.
I wouldn’t because like most Mac products It’ll be generic and crap.
A bit like your article.
the iPhone will never compare with DS…
firstly a DS will cost you $129.99, when a iPhone will cost you £499!
secondly – where are the buttons on an iPhone? yes, you have a touch screen, but not all games can be played with that! – you need buttons to make it a decent gaming console!
thirdly – no doubt if Apple starting making games for the iPhone – then they would probably only available to download via iTunes! – which means straight away you need to go spend another couple of hundred on buying a computer if you haven’t already got one!
Apple may break into the games market but only so far as the fanboy will say how much more amazing the Apple product is compared to everything else, despite the competition actually delivering more functionality. An Apple console will sell because Apple fanboys are the closes things to religious fanatics the IT world has. Will they pose any significant threat? Of course not. They re-invented the portable music market and pretty much own that space because they invented a pretty, portable device that doesn’t do a great deal but a blind monkey could use it. But that is a space they pretty much created. Outside the fanboy, who owns an iPhone? And what does it actually do that smartphones/PPC haven’t been doing for years?
Apple are very good at hardware, it’s awesome stuff and I won’t knock them for it. But the pretty games devices that are fun, well thought out and brilliantly designed are already here and done with brilliance and innovation by Nintendo. I think to suggest that Apple is even a slight threat to Nintendo is laughable, and I’m sorry to say a typical fanboy ‘Apple is better than everything’ response that ignores some glaring defecits in Apple’s latest product line. 3G anyone? Apparently if Apple don’t offer it, you can’t possibly need it – or at least that is prevailing fanboy wisdom.
In addition…it’s not just about the technology involved, it’s the games themselves. Nintendo have a history of making games that, despite their simplicity, are far more playable and addictive than those from other companies. As long they continue to do so they will be very hard to challenge, in my opinion!
The idea of a handheld videogame console in the form of the iphone is a horrible one. As Stuart mentioned above, it would probably be available for download only from iTunes, and like all other Apple products, will be disgustingly overpriced (the apple tv costs 3 times as much as a regular machine that will let you view your computer on your tv and doesn’t even do that, only allows itunes movies and youtube). That would also be horribly inconvenient as it would limit the amount of games you can have a at any given time, limited by the memory. Also, pure touch screen would make it impossible to have a lot of the more popular hand held games such as Super Mario Bros. and especially fighting games. An iphone gaming console, despite all these superior graphics and whatnot that you point out, will turn out to be nothing more than a new Game Gear, I hope you remember that one by Sega.
Oh shut up, as if Apple would ever challenge Nintendo in the gaming market. Yes you may be able to play the odd gimicky game with your iPhone, but there’s a world of difference between that & “IPhone & DS going head to head”, you rabid Mac fanboy muppet.
If I was part of Nintendo I wouldn’t be too worried. Jesus, give some people a fancy BSD-based phone & they think they’ve been given a fekkin Alienware gaming laptop or summat. You tit.
lord……ppl r getting dumber everyday. ipod vs. psp and ds , iphone vs. wii. any other speculations u came up with recently?????
I don’t agree that the multi-touch on the iPhone would work for gaming, apart from displaying traditional style buttons around the sides (even then, the lack of tactile feedback is a big downer).
The advantage of the stylus is that it is very thin, so would only be blocking a minimal amount of your view of the screen. If you had to be putting fingers in the way of the screen all the time, you would likely miss a lot of the action which would cause you to not be able to respond to time critical situations in games properly.
On the other hand, it could be pretty good for genres such as turn based strategies, but even then, I don’t think it could overthrow Nintendo as king of portable gaming.
If Apple have any sense they will see the problems Nokia had with the N-Gage and the spectacular failure of the Gizmondo, and know to leave well alone.
Get real, the iPhone will never compete with dedicated portable games consoles.
The iPhone only allows for browser based third party applications at the moment, so unless apple starts writing games all you going to get are some rip off flash games that propably can’t handle multi-point input.
And then the iPhone will wash our clothes, farm the land and look after us. But we must be careful because one day the iPhone will take over the world and all us humans will be obsolete!
What a load of bollocks. It’s a phone for god sake!!!!!
> the iPhone will never compare with DS…
And the Wii could never compare with the PS3… and yet, somehow, it does. Denial – just a river in Egypt?
> firstly a DS will cost you $129.99, when a iPhone will cost you £499!
And how much will the 2nd generation iPhone cost? And the iPhone mini? the iPhone nano? Apple starts with the high end, and fills the lower gaps later
> secondly – where are the buttons on an iPhone? yes, you have a touch
> screen, but not all games can be played with that! – you need buttons to
> make it a decent gaming console!
You. Print. The. Buttons. On. The. Touch. Screen.
> thirdly – no doubt if Apple starting making games for the iPhone – then
> they would probably only available to download via iTunes! – which means
> straight away you need to go spend another couple of hundred on buying a
> computer if you haven’t already got one!
Surprise: the *iPhone* connects to the Internet. You don’t need a computer, you can buy the game directly from the iPhone.
Seriously, those were some very daft complains
Hope that helps,
Grey Wolf
Apple are hardly even in the amateur league when it comes to the games market – probably best they leave well alone.
N-Gage springs to mind…
Sorry but this will NEVER happen! At least not this way.
Demand for the DS is driven by the quantity and quality of games that are available for it. Its not the touch screen itself that makes the DS popular but the things that good developers are able to do with it. Just because the iPhone has a touch screen does not make it equal to the DS.
Steve Jobs is far to arrogant to open up the iPhone to a sufficiently wide array of developers. Even if they DO allow some developers/publishers access to it games will be few and far between, and good ones will be a rarity. And even then Jobs will probably pick the company with the shiniest logo! EA maybe??
Not to mention the monthly phone contract required in order to continue playing ….
The harsh reality is that a device designed for a specific purpose will always fulfill that purpose better than a general purpose device can.
The other harsh reality is that now iPhone mania is dying down – and people actually have these devices – we are starting to realise the there are actually better phones on the market – with better specifications, at lower prices – Apple will have a real uphill battle against the entrecnched competition to oust them – and their track record on that front is not good. Yes the iPod was a game changing device, back when mp3 players had no storage, and were really clunky to use – but the mobile phone and handheld game markets are mature saturated markets – and historicaly this is where Apple fail.
I agree Stuart, plus
Fourthly – it isn’t just about the most powerful hardware – the Nintendo DS and the Wii are well behind their competitors in the technology stakes but the inovative games make a big difference. Nintendo have been very clever reaching out to demographics who do not typically play video games.
Fifthly – you need a large and well established developer community to make enough games to make a platform attractive and if the platform isn’t attractive you will not recruit a large developer community – Catch 22.
I’m sure games will come to the iPhone (in the same way they have come to Windows Mobile and Symbian) but it isn’t going to go head-to-head with a DS or a PSP.
The iPhone is pretty average as a phone, poor as a camera and not too hot as a PIM. It will be pretty average as a handheld games device too.
There’s already games that can be bought on iTunes which can be downloaded onto iPods and the iPhone. However I see Apple’s will be too busy of focusing and making in roads into the mobile phone market rather than gaming.
Smug as you are – what evidence do you even have that your prediction has come through. Apple has started adding games to its mobile – oh my god! The sky is falling. I agree with Stuart, there’s little comparison at the moment, prices and quality of gaming aside. Lets wait and see, shall we? In any event the PSP showed that trying to be everything can end up sucking. Nintendo specialises in the gaming and thats why it always wins hands down. No one wants to play GTA on a handheld, but Mario Bros?! You get the picture
It takes a lot more than this to create a thriving gaming empire
“You create a portable device capable of gorgeous graphics, pristine audio and driven by a multitouch interface, you’re already there in the first place.”
Do you remember when the Game Gear, with its techicolor screen faultered against the Game Boy. Or the superduper Gizmodo (or whatever it is) didn’t even make a scratch in the surface of the PSP, let-alone the DS? And now the Wii, with ‘low-def’ graphics is storming the sales charts? Oh, best forget the N-Gage.
Nintendo have a proud history of understanding gamers, offering bright new ideas over grunt force, and wonderful innovation. And, Nintendo have faultered somewhat with the N64, and Gamecube, but still come back strong today.
What does Apple know about gaming? Despite the flak Windows takes it has a huge gaming base, hell even Microsoft have iconic titles such has Halo.
Dream on.
Stuart – I would agree that Iphone lacks the Standard Hard Touch Buttons we are all used to on our consoles, but this could be easily corrected with an ad on accessory. An with regards to needing a computer to buy from the itunes store, It would be simple enough for apple to enable store purchases through the phone. Apple have openly showed that they do not believe in removable media as a thing of the future. CD’s and DVD’s and even Blu Ray etc won’t exist in apples future. The future is imediate purchase and download of the digital content the home user requires. Apple have EA Games on side. They have the Mobile Networks on side. The own the market with a portable media device. They just have to flick the switch, and they win. The future has almost loaded!!!
Its not just about the hardware, no doubt we have Apple with some serious quality in the hardware dept. However Apple (ipod aside) are somewhat a company that provides niche solutions. I see the iphone being just that, the competition is just to fierce.
More importantly the games market is all about content, not hardware microsoft prove that point by selling hardware at a massive loss. Nintendo have a enormous pedigree here, and vast experience in developing great titles. They have proved with the Wii it’s not about great graphics and sound it’s about great gameplay. Apple are neanderthals in comparison to Nintendo here. I predict a 3-0 to Nintendo here. No competition.
I cant see the iPhone ever beating the DS, or any other future Nintendo handheld device. Can I remind you of the Nokia NGage…
PSPs are in widespread use and the Iphone is not going to get a large share of the mobile phone market becuase there are hundreds of other phones and the Iphone is more expensive.
In the future your probably right that gaming on mobile phones will compete with hand held gaming devices but just not yet
Not impressed with the logic here; the capture of the video gaming market would be a bit pyrrhic, given the nature of the video game market itself; formats are fickle, consumers are lower-income (in general, although obviously I’m loaded) and development of games is done by -shock, horror- third party software developers.
The crap games for phones issue is valid, and well considered; it is instinctively obvious that Apple should be cleaning up on games for the iPhone; but that’s not the same as developing the iPhone for a substantially expansive market.
Apple don’t really do low end, and when they do (Mac Mini) they do it in a half-arsed manner.
I wouldn’t buy it; I only got an iPod because MS haven’t released the Zune here; before that I was heavily into my HTC Windows Mobile device.
Nintendo have been beating all-comers for the past two decades in the handheld market and they continue to lead the way despite the best efforts of Sega, Sony, NEC and dozens of other companies in the past. Not everybody wants a piece of equipment like the iPhone and parents won’t be spending that kind of money on their kids mobile which means it will never achieve the kind of sales that the DS and Gameboy series. Apple and Nintendo have a lot in common but I think Nintendo will win that war.
When the first generation of Game Boys came out, many pundits said that it would suffer at the hands of the Atari Lynx. After all, it had a colour screen, a better processor and Atari had a decent history.
Unfortunately for them, Tetris came out, and the Nintendo decimated the competition.
Nintendo really know what they are doing with games machines, and it doesn’t just come down to the hardware.
The key issue here is not iphone vs. DS but iphone vs. everything else.
To make it truly competitive, one I suggest two modifications:
1 – one needs to add a whacking great ipod-style hard drive.
2 – open up the interface and/or safari to make third party apps easily available as addons, rather like Firefox has done with its extensions.
These are rather obvious, but if done with the same style and quality Apple is known for, then it will be the must-have hand-held to end all handhelds.
Why bother downloading games from iTunes when the iPhone has a perfectly servicable web browser?
One thing, Stuart, that you have neglected to mention, is that in order to use an iPhone, it must be activated by use of iTunes anyway, so if you’re silly enough to buy an iphone wihtout having a computer, you have a very expensive brick with ‘please activate via iTunes’ written on the front of it.
lol i hope mac donmt make the same mistake as sony by tryin to take on the king of gaming. Nintendo were doin this stuff b4 mac was a twinkle in steve jobs eye, an even today they have proved with the wii that prove once again they rule
Nokia N-gage anyone?
The lack of d-pad and buttons is a deal-breaker. Mobile phone handsets always suck at these, and the iPhone doesn’t even have any. Since you’ve mentioned the DS, games like Mario 64 DS and Monkey Ball are perfect examples of how a touchscreen cannot adequately replace analogue sticks, never mind the precision required for a d-pad.
I’ve no doubt that the iPhone will be a reasonable device for casual mobi games, but it won’t be replacing either of the heavy hitters in its current iteration.
I disagree 100% with you. Companies with proper gaming pedigrees (Sony, Sega, Atari) have all sought to take on Nintendo in the hand held market and have all lost the battle. Apple might have won over the geek share of the mobile phone market, but they are fighting to gain market share from the blackberry brigade wit their I-phone whilst other people are very loyal to the mobile brands. i have had four Sony-Ericcsons and won’t be chaning whilst others I know have only ever had Nokia’s.
People like me don’t want to pay £300 for a phone either, in the same way as we don;t want to pay £300 for a hand held games console. The DS Market is driven by kids and the I-phone is aimed at geeky adults. There needs to be a crossover and Apple don’t have it.
Sorry dude, you are so wrong if you think the iPhone will compete with the DS any time soon. The games industry is so different to the mobile industry – remember the Nokia N gage?
Perhaps in time they will add the functionality & bring out games for iPhone. But they will be casual games and will thus expand the market rather than compete with Nintendo for their customer base.
Also, let’s not foget that Macs are not exactly game-friendly machines either – it seems Apple simply don’t understand that industry yet.
I seriously doubt the iPhone will challenge Nintendo or Sony for handheld gaming.
Oh, dear. Where to begin. First of lets look at the most important thing that any gaming platform mush have, games. One of the reasons that the Nintendo DS sells so well is because of the first party titles. You will never see a Mario or a Zelda on an iPhone. Mac also can’t rely on third party support because they generally tendto pump useless shovel-ware on any system they don’t have a frame of reference for. This happened in the early days of the DS also but the first party offerings carried the system through these troubling times. The other problem is that gamers want games machines, not convergence devices. Don’t be a jack of all trades and master of none, like the NGage. Add to this the huge install base of the DS and it is fairly apparent that the iPhone should remain just that, a phone.
A response to Stuart….
Firstly, The article says that by the end of the year Apple could change it’s pricing to compete competitively. Not at this time.
Secondly, YOU DON’T NEED BUTTONS. You can touch the screen ANYWHERE! Thus, anywhere is a button.
Thirdly, Yes, Apple may put the games on iTunes. They also have the option to allow installs via direct download over the phone network, or wireless in an Apple Store. Apple are clever, I don’t believe they would deliberately limit their market.
I had an iphone for twelve days before the end came off. Does anybody tell me how to re-attach the end? IT IS NO GOOD WITHOUT A DAMN END!!!!
You’re making a huge, vast mistake, the same kind of mistake Sony made with the PSP and PS3. The fact that you even talk about a PSP-killer when the PSP has been a disappointment to Sony shows how out of touch the above article is.
You’re assuming gamers buy attractive hardware. They don’t. They never have done. The winning games system of each generation has never ever been the best hardware, in fact they’ve usually been the worst hardware.
People buy games systems for the games. The Nintendo DS’s sales sucked until Nintendogs and Brain Training came out, then they leapt ahead of all other consoles put together. The Xbox was going absolutely nowhere until Halo made people take it seriously. The Megadrive/Genesis was a non-entity until Sonic The Hedgehog appeared.
Every time a game system has been even mildly successful, it’s been on the back of hit games that everyone wants to get. Content is the key, not the hardware.
You can’t just become a top games producer overnight, it takes years of development to build up a crop of skills and quality franchises. Apple has no track record at all in this field.
You can’t just buy into the games world either, as Microsoft have found out with their massively loss-making Xbox unit which is still struggling against the competition despite having literally billions of dollars thrown at it.
If you want to assess the iPhone’s chances in the gaming world, the first thing you should do is completely ignore the iPhone hardware itself and concentrate entirely on the games that might appear on it.
I highly doubt the future generations of iPhone would ever be able to compete in the mobile gaming platform industry on a serious level. If anything it will be just as good as me gaming on my nokie e65 with a new game i just downloaded and painstakingly had to install.
First of all Nintendo has experience in the industry of developing consoles. There is a very good reason why specific control surfaces have been made, because it has been tried and tested. There is little lag which means you can have games requiring quick response times without the user getting frustrated.
Plus keep in mind that apple will also have to open the doors for the coding platform for the iphone. Why because I wouldn’t trust anything gaming wise that apple makes in terms of software, they purely lack the experience and no one can prove any apple mac to be a great gaming platform.
On another note keep in mind that the reason mobile platforms such as DS and PSP works is the fact that its catridge based, even though the type of media might change the principal remains the same. It would be frustrating to de-install a game on your new iphone before you have to install a new game you want to try. And even with a big hard drive how many high quality games can you fit in realisticaly? Compare that with just taking a bag with some games in it.
Im sorry, but sometimes mac is still a mac, and not the swiss army knife that can do everything.
This article is so smug and full of mac fanboyism, I don’t even know where to start in bringing the author back down to planet Earth.
The iPhone is an under spec’ed, over priced piece of designer crap with a naff interface and evil vendor lock ins. Aside the trivialities of multi-touch screen and tilt – features which are cool but hardly technological revolutions (despite what the Apple spin doctors brainwash you to believe) – offer little reimbursement when you’re feeling the hole in your wallet after the sobering realisation that you could have brought a just as capable smart phone / XDA for half the price.
So in short – if the iPhone fails to make it as a phone (as it clearly is) then I fail to see how it’s going to succeed as a games console.
Exactly, not buttons, hello, have you played on a DS?
Also compare the thickness of a stylus to a fat sausage finger of your average male adult that blocks half the screen when touching it. One small pat of your Nintendogs face would break it’s neck.
I really doubt that apple will try and give nintendo a run for its money. at least if they have seen what an idiot sony have made of them selves trying to get into the market. the problem is that Nintendo has such a brand that if they put there logo on a peice of card board people would still but it. Plus Apple has absolutly no experiance making games for there products I mean look at what happened when the N-gage came out for that was a mobile phone and a hand held and it got no where because it lacked good games. This is where Apple falls flat on its face if you look at the games available on iTunes at the minute they are simple games at best and could in no way compete with nintendo.
I really doubt that apple will try and give nintendo a run for its money. at least if they have seen what an idiot sony have made of them selves trying to get into the market. the problem is that Nintendo has such a brand that if they put there logo on a peice of card board people would still buy it. Plus Apple has absolutly no experiance making games for there products I mean look at what happened when the N-gage came out for that was a mobile phone and a hand held and it got no where because it lacked good games. This is where Apple falls flat on its face if you look at the games available on iTunes at the minute they are simple games at best and could in no way compete with nintendo.
Uh, Pete, that “New York Times” link points to a Post article. I’m sure the mistake was genuine, but you get a slightly different idea of a Post versus a Times piece ^_^
Fundamentally, your argument poses a very obvious suggestion. We are all about condensing our gadgets and devices into as small a bundle as we can, hence the boom of mp3/camera carrying phones. The only thing that has failed to catch on has been the games phone. Nokia have tried and tried and failed, whereas most modern phones are capable of pushing out quality games and graphics which are of PSone quality at least. The problem is accessing a market which is largely made up of persons under the age of 16. The minimum age to get a contract personally is 18, which leaves the pay as you go market as the main area of assault.
It is no, well-kept, secret that Sony are using their part of the Sony Ericsson brand to develop a PSP phone and I think that with no experience in portable gaming and their iPhone being in it’s infancy, Apple would be taking on a bit too much at once to start worrying about conquering other markets first.
This prediction ignores all the dynamics and history of the games industry. As cited, the Iphone – even more expensive than the PS3 – is not going to challenge the DS as a mass market gaming device. Secondly, it comes down to content, franchises etc. of which Apple have none. Thirdly, where is the media storage and interface that’s going to be used to make these games removable and storable. Sorry, it doesn’t fly.
As a MAC lover I’m sure you could start to believe this.
What a lot of hogwash!
Apple, being Apple are more than happy to develop another version of the iPod so that you have to buy it again and further line Steve Jobs pockets with cash! Who’s to say that they would not love to include gaming technology after all the gaming market is a highly lucrative one.
However, What you fail to notice is that even though the iPod is a market leader and the iPhone would love to be they certainly are not ground breakers. You have said Nintendo have had motion control in their game controllers for a while, Sony have buttons galore as well as motion control. Both also have years of industry history in the games market. What makes you think that Apple could release a portable games console because of the iPhone?
How and where does Apple break into this and you honestly expect Steve Jobs to market it for $250 you don’t know Apple as well as you would like to think!
Go on run out and buy yourself that PSP or the DS you’ve always wanted and stop writing silly blogs about your personal wish list.
I remember an old saying ‘everyone who doesn’t know how to use a computer uses a MAC!’ well now that MAC’s and PC’s are very similar via Intel and Vista you have to ask yourself one question. Where is the MAC games market?
Apple is not a gaming brand and probably never will be. If you love Apple that much immerse yourself in it, however if you love gaming then choose something better!
I cannot see that iphone will compete with the DS. The DS is too specific a games console and the iphone is too much a generic piece of kit.
The best that you could hope for is a collaboration in the future (Nintendo nearly did this with Sony back in the days of the SNES so its not unthinkable that they would entertain such an idea).
The next Nintendo handheld is very unlikely not be a mobile phone, the next iphone will probably have more focus on games – but they won’t meet in the middle.
The iPhone *may* be a threat to the PSP but does it really threaten the DS?
Someone else has pointed out the price differentials but what about the target audience differentials?
The iPhone is aimed at geeks (of all kinds) with money, the DS has a much wider base than that, how many parents are going to buy their kids iPhones to play games on?
How many non-gamers e.g the people who play brain training etc., are going to have an iPhone.
They’re in different markets, and there’s room for them both to live successfully side by side…
Run that one past me again stu…you reckon an iPhone would need a computer to connect to iTunes. Hmm. Are we talking about the iPhone here?
Isn’t that the phone/PDA with a Safari browser, wireless and cellular connectivity.. ?
“which means straight away you need to go spend another couple of hundred on buying a computer if you haven’t already got one!” -stuart
Where do you live that you know anyone who doesn’t already own a computer?
This is all a bit typical of the Apple ethos – it goes something like…
“If it’s built pretty and you hype it enough, people will buy it, regardless of cost”
Portable gaming devices are bought for and by teenagers and kids, and as such it must be affordable. Apple’s potential product will not be. It is Apple, therefore it will be pretty, but expensive.
Oh and thank’s for using the word “Smug”. Apple, apple…apple..
Very amusing to think that any phone based games will see the iphone sell as well as specifically designed games machine. Please see Nokia Ngage for anymore information, a phone that was the equal of consoles at the time, and bit the dust in a big way
Nintendo has over 20 years of gaming market experience for home and handheld console as well as 1st party games. Not a single Apple product/platform ever made it as a decent gaming platform. On one way, Apple’s products are to closed to innovation from third party to generate the games/accessories/ideas that can help build a competing force to Nintendo (like the Sega megadrive or the PC and to a lesser extent Sony). Then again, Nintendo has always been the strictest gaming environment of all companies and the one where the fees were highest and it’s been successful – but that is because it is a games company! It’s taken Microsoft about $4-5bn to “get” gaming… i think Steve Jobs is far too canny to get sucked into such a profitless dogfight. Besides, how many companies (Nokia anyone? and countless other ones) tried to break the games market with a phone, mp3, mp4, whatever else, that could play games and did not succeed???
You might know your Apple stuff, but you don’t seem to grasp gaming at all.
>secondly – where are the buttons on an iPhone? yes, you have a touch screen, but not all games can be played with that! – you need buttons to make it a decent gaming console!
not yet used a iphone but have seen the NES emulator on it… with the vitual D pad and buttons.. the buttons seem to work fine… being the screen is motion sense.. I imagine it would work ok if it can detect the pressure of your left thumb. I imagine apples biggest hurdle is the iphone will not appeal to the asian market who are fickled on american consumer products. and apple really just don’t have a clue in the games market. anyone remembers the pippin? apple have the style midas touch for design but there really are at square one if they think they can take on sony or nintendo. microsoft are just only starting to get a foothold in the games market after a gazillion dollors spent doing so. and have yet still to make a profit.
Nice idea but I’m afraid that the iPhone is far to expensive to ever compete in the mobile gaming market. The features it has are already beaten by almost all cell phones available in the UK (most of which are given away for free with a contract) and the snazzy interface doesn’t even come close to justifying the stupidly high price tag. The iPhone will never beat the DS in the portable gaming market, its just no contest.
I bet Nintendo are quaking in their boots … not.
I don’t really see how an iphone or ipod would present “an interface the DS can’t quite match without the need for a stylus”. Even the DS itself has no need for a stylus. It has all the buttons of a regular controller + a stylus. That means developers always have the option not to have any stylus use in their games at all. You’re comparing a touchscreen phone to a system designed specifically(and very conveniently) for gaming. Even the screen set-up is more gameplay friendly on a DS.. at least we’ve got one on top and one on bottom.
Now adding a phone to the DS.. that would be something. In my uneducated opinion it would also be a better marketing move for Nintendo.. of course they’ve always sucked at marketing.
If High tech gadgetry was all that was needed to be the best games console then the PSP would have won ages ago. The fact is that the console relies on the games, and no-one makes better games than Nintendo.
I can’t think of many games that Apple could produce that could rival New Super Mario Brothers, Nintendogs or The Legend of Zelda. Throw in the cost of a DS and the fact that it appeals to all age groups, where the I-phone will only appeal to the older audiences and I think Nintendo have very little to worry about.
For those of us with foresight,we will (or already have) the computer (a mac)!! ever notice that there are not so many games for a mac? or UNIX? If you want to play…..buy a PC!!!! For real work, and the future..MAC; Hasta la VISTA babies!!!!
Tony
“GigaOM reported today, Nintendo has filed a patent for a tilt-sensitive handheld console”
GigaOm is seriously out of date – this patent was originally filed a *long* time ago. If this is meant to back up your assertions then you are starting on shaky foundations.
Oh. the other source is the New York Post. Which also refers to the same ancient patient. Hey! I hear MS are working on a console – and Sone have a sequel to the PS1 in the pipeline. Panic everybody !
i agree apple and the iphone will not give compation to the ds as nintendo has already got this market and will off course be improving their console over the next few years.
Get real. This will _never_ happen.
the thing is sony said the same thing with the PSP jsut because somthing is novel and inovative doesnt mean that it will suddenly storm in and steal the thunder of an already established games manufacturer and games developer.
However i could see the IPHone as supporting games already developed for the DS but like stuart says where are the buttons. One of the key factors in any hand held game is feedback you get from the buttons you could incorporate them into the actual iphone and maybe even have you drag them around the screen depending on your play style. But then your eating into the size of display.
Maybe nintendo and apple would cooperate on developing games but the future isnt set in stone so we shall see.
correction: you cite the NY Times, but the link is to the NY Post.
it would be better if apple had nintendo create games for the iphone. has apple ever created a halfway decent game? no. the mac has been a joke for gamers for eons now… why add fuel to the fire?
nintendo has a crush on apple… and is the most innovative gaming companies in the world. plus nintendo fanboys are often apple fanboys. it just seems obvious…
apple has had no problem going to the best in the industry for this device — the integration of google, youtube, yahoo. i hope they continue in this tradition and team up with nintendo… i’d much rather play a nintendo game on my iphone than an apple game on my iphone.
i’d much rather nintendo and apple be friends then enemies.
Not only are you smug, you must also be quite a prat!! Aside of the quite obvious comment from stuart above, the iphone is NOT a game machine simply because it has a touch screen and can display pretty pictures!! Does it have dedicate 3d graphics hardware? does it have a dedicated sound processor? Is it’s processor fast enough to match either the PSP or DS? the answer to all these questions are NO. If you are going to spout like the blind fanboy you are, at least please try to ensure that what you spout is in any way feasible. The IPhone is NOT the saviour of the world, it’s just a crap phone with a decent screen and snazzy software interface, GET OVER IT!!!!
iPhone costs $499 not £499 Stuart. It hasn’t arrived in UK yet.
You’ve got to be joking.
You are joking, right?
There’s fanboyism and there’s fanboyism.
Jeez………
When people think Apple, they don’t think games. The mac has been around for a long time and its still not a gaming platform. Sure, you get some sloppy 2nds from the PC but thats just Blizzard making more cash.
I agree that the iphone has technology but Apple alone could not support it, you need 3rd party support and a lot of it. It would not be hard to surpass the psp, that thing is just aweful so I would not exactly brag about that.
Apple would have to do several things to even attempt to go against Nintendo in the next generation of handhelds.
“I’m sorry. Sometimes the smug just gets everywhere.”
Smug is not a good thing. Also it seems those that love Apple are overendowed with it.
Try rearranging these three words “Life” “Get” “A”
HTH
If a game needs buttons they will be programmed on to the screen and can be placed where ever they game creator feels they are needed. Yes Apple probably will offer the games through iTunes, but how will have a games unit in a few years without some form of computer. Plus this means no shops, delivery, packaging, petrol or shoe leather to get to the games the the gamers. It could take off.
More nonesense from people who think that Apple products offer the answer to question of life, the universe and everything.
Whatever next? Stick four wheels on an iPhone and it could challenge Ferrari?
lol , apple a games company! no chance.
Modern games cost so much money to develop for that apple wont be making any. Consoles are also usually sold cheaper than the cost to manufacturer ( ms games division records $6bn year loss 2006) and thats not really the iphone is it.
If they start selling at $99 then maybe.
There is just one problem with your theory. Apple don’t make brilliant games.
Nintendo do.
There is just one problem with your theory. Apple don’t make brilliant games.
Nintendo do.
Your entire article is a prediction based on a prediction you previously made? WTF?
Nothing to see here.
To respond to the comment above, you wont need buttons if they are made a part of the games GUI and since the iPhone runs the FULL OSX software you could just as easily download anything from iTunes via a WiFi Internet Connection.
These things occurred to me in seconds, and I don’t even have an iPhone or and iTunes account. Surely this is common sense?
I disagree, but only slightly.
As Stuart has pointed out, Nintendo is all about the price and playability.
The iPhones competition will come from Sony and Nokia, both of whom are likely to find the competition very difficult. The natural market for all three manufacturer’s are the style concous, cool twenty somethings. Nintendo’s is more inclusive, from the 10 year old girls playing Nintendogs, through to the Grandad playing Big Brain Accademy and Sudoku. Most of these people don’t have the £500 cash spare.
A look at the latest game’s charts (I’m talking UK here) shows that Joe public is happy to spend the money on games, if the cost of the console is cheap enough (the top ten games consist of 8 Nintendo games and 2 cross platform games, everyones a winner, as long as the games console you’ve got is built by Nintendo)
At the end of the day it all comes down to price, just ask Sony since the launch of the PS3.
As Stuart’s comment stated above, the iphone and DS wont compete. They are two different tools for two different jobs. I may be wrong in this but Apple chose to go into the mobile phone market over the console market as phones have enjoyed a lager growth than consoles. Therefore meaning that the iphone was never designed to be much of a gaming machine. As far as i can see the iphone may only come with games on it because all other mobile phones do (or at least a vast majority).
Simply because Nintendo uses motion-sensetivity to operate games does not mean that any motion-sensetive software can handle the kinds of games that the Wii has. A swivel-tilt function is a far cry from the gyroscopic 3-axis motion control of the Wiimote, which is sensetive enough to not only indicate multidirections but speed and force. Swivelling an iPhone around isn’t even close to the same thing.
Unless Apple plans to totally reinvent their motion sensetivity for game control, they would have to add some semblence of controls (ie: buttons) in order to operate the iPhone as a gaming device. That would completely defeat the inherent cool of the iPhone all to push it the way of the N-Gage! Not a wise design move, and not something Apple is dumb enough to do.
I think you’re connecting a few too many dots ahead of time. I agree that Nintendo has the potential to take a much larger chunk out of Sony’s PSP market if then add motion sensetivity to their handheld devices, but the iPhone’s nowhere near being capable of that.
I would imagine that the amount of people that don’t own a computer whilst owning a gaming console would be limited. Great point about the controls, or lack there off :) I personally believe that while trying to combine a portable music device with both a gaming console and a phone is good in theory, it would be a failure in practice. Like many smart phones such as the one i’m using at the moment, they fail to operate effectively as a phone.
Oh, and dont forget the fact that Apple would lock your purchases down so you could only play it on limited number of machines. Then there’s the fact that the US iTunes would have a bigger library of games, would get them before the rest of the world and would undoubtedly end up paying less.
Forget all the fancy dan stuff Apple, just allow us folk in the UK (and the rest of the world) the ability to purchase TV Shows/Films via iTunes AT SOME POINT!
And so i have a problem, buy the iPhone when we eventually get it here just in time for Christmas, or wait for that upgraded iPod when it undoubtedly comes out just after with the iPhone screen and interface? We can’t all afford to have both…
Ahhh I see “moderated” actualy means “filtered so only supportive and non critical comments” get through …. if you’re prepared to post your opinions and ask for comments – at least be man enough to aknowledge other peoples opinions when you ask for them – if you don’t like them and choose not to let them appear – just don’t bother asking for them.
Afraid of the truth are we ?
Apple products have a habit of being over hyped. Yes they are great at design and their marketing clearly works, but their products are not the best on the market.
Apple products have a habit of being over hyped. Yes they are great at design and their marketing clearly works, but their products are not the best on the market.
Definately agree with stuart. The price difference already diminished any possible competiton. Such circumstances can be seen in the home console market, with how Wii is dominating PS3 due to a huge price gap.
Also, the iPhone is tailored to businessmen with huge phone needs, not for gamers.
Sorry, Mr. Cult of Mac blogger, but this is blind stupidity on your part.
Typical Apple fanboy arrogance and daydreaming. The Iphone hasn’t even come close to conquering the feature phone market. Barely. And they think they can conquer the games market. Funny stuff.
Is it April 1st?
The screen looks stunning by comparison to the DS but the fact there are no buttons on the iPhone makes this a bit of a no brainer.
You can’t have a decent gaming experience using just a touch screen!
So Apple could turn the iphone into a gaming machine? Well, with Apple’s rich history of affordable hardware and pulling out all the stops over the years to make the Mac the desktop gaming platform of choice, I’m sure that Nintendo must be quaking in their boots!
(written on a mac)
Your theory has smatterings of “N-Gage” about it, an over priced MP3 playing phone. Sure it has more functionality but Apples lack of commitment with even computer gaming is clearly evident.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think apple have the gaming know how or desire to be even remotely successful in the market.
The iPhone will never fully compete with anything Nintendo puts out, for the same reason the PSP can’t compete with the iPod. The iPhone isn’t built for gaming, it’s a cell phone/PMP hybrid with a ton of extras, NOT a full portable gaming console. The PSP is a portable gaming console first and PMP second, NOT a dedicated PMP.
Sony tried pushing the PSP as a full fledged PMP (which it’s not), and what was it primarily purchased for? Gaming. The PMP functionality is a nice add-on, but it doesn’t compare to any full fledged PMP’s. If Apple tries the same with the iPhone, I doubt it would go farther than Apple users.
If Apple wants to compete with Nintendo, they’ll have to put out a portable gaming console, period.
I can see a gaming enhanced iPod as a PSP killer, assuming high quality games could be licensed. The DS has it’s place, as Nintendo products do, as the lower price range system with innovative features. The PSP, however, has significantly more capable hardware than the DS, but has had very few quality titles. When I sold them in a retail setting, people were as often concerned about the PSP’s ability to play movies as they were game titles, which bodes poorly for it as a gaming platform.
Buttons can be created on the surface of the display itself in style similar the interfaces on Star Trek. The lack of tactile return on the buttons could make it difficult to play, but it would also give designers variety on button layouts.
The worry for Nintendo might be the next generation of handhelds, where the price point would have risen and their currently innovative features on the DC would be commonplace or even passe.
Wishful thinking, no foundation at all.
This doesn’t add up for SEVERAL reasons.
reply to comment above from stuart..
Yes i think the iPhone could be the new DS.. fine its more expensive but look what extra you get, iPod, phone etc. And im really not bothered about buttons, amazingly today there is something called a GUI. why not create the buttons on-screen?
Secondly why do you need a PC/Mac to be able to go to iTunes.. if you think about it, if apple started to do this they will stick iTunes onto the iPhone so you could pay and download right on your phone.
The iPhone is a great contender to be a console, but apple needs to give the official SDK to developers because at present people have to hack into the phone to make these kind of programs.
Interesting article, but honestly the iPhone is primarily a phone. The DS is a games console. It has a dedicated CPU and GPU aimed at gaming. The iPhone, is based on a simple OS designed for interaction and looks. There is NO WAY on earth the iPhone could run a decent DS game, for example Super Mario 64 DS. To render that ammount of information, at a resonable frame rate and keep the ease you use high is mear impossible for a mobile phone. As above,
A: The phone is too expensive.
B: It is underpowered for what you say.
C: It has no AAA titles, or exclusive games to attact an audiance.
D: It doesnt have buttons, or a resonable control interface for MOST games. E: Its only available in USA atm.
F: Its Apple, who have never have a good rep with games.
It is seriously ambitious at the least to even say that this can rival the DS. Of course there could be some games that could work for it but i cant see it as being any different to any other Mobile/Cell phone games. All of which have failed to make any MASS market impact. When buying a phone, most people will buy it for its Phone/text functionality, not for its gaming potential.
I must say, i think this argument is rather pointless as whoever wrote it has very little understanding of the gaming market, its worth. And mostly how hard it is to break in!
The article is interesting but in my opinion it may have made one mistake, Apple has never been good at the games market, games for Mac’s are rubbish for example and the problem with iPhone is the it is only touch sensitive meaning to play a game you need to touch the screen. Nintendo are also holding the Ace card which is Nintendo games only are sold for Nintendo consoles. it is not the DS that is so great it is the games, who would of though a bunch of brain teasers would be so immediately rockets to number 1 game spot. I think that it is Apple how may be in trouble if Nintendo decide to promote their Ds as an MP3 player, with 4GB SD cards out would it be that hard to make it an MP3 player fully and how hard is it to turn a DS into a phone?? Maybe Apple not Nintendo should worry.
I can see the iPhone becoming a gaint in the games arena, just like the Mac… opps!
I think the main problem with this is while people change their phones every 18 months or so, in order to make a profit most games systems are designed with at least a 5 year life before the successor comes out, part of this is to ease development (can take a few years to make a game) and another reason is to re-coup the losses that are often made on every console sold through games.
More likely is that nintendo or a 3rd will find a way to put a simcard and aerial etc into the DS’s gba cartridge slot and then you’ve got a built in phone in the DS for £20 or something with a touch interface for typing in numbers and texts. (also surfs the web with built in wifi).
Finally it also takes time to build up a relationship with developers and a long time to become as respected as nintendo are in the handheld market – people will be wary of another gizmodo despite everything that apple touches turning to gold at the mo. Oh and to have games out for release developers need to be given something to work with at least a year in advance and in the phone market, after a year your competitors have already released two sucessive new ones.
Basically the only way I see gaming happening on phones is when they become powerful enough to simply port existing games be it DS or even more advanced PC games in the future.
PS I know you’re talking about the ipod becoming a DS killer as opposed to the iphone but the fact is mp3 players are getting smaller as all you really need is a couple of lines of display unless you want to play video and this doesnt lend itself well to a gaming machine. Phones on the otherhand have stabilized their size really and would be a better candidate for gaming if not for the reasons listed above.
As for a do it all machine, given battery,memory,size,contract,expense limitations it’ll always end up being a jack of all trades and master of none for now :)
Everytime this drivel gets posted I have a great laugh. Apple is not going “head to head” with the game Market. Anywone who thinks that is just a fool. Nintendo has been around since 1889. They KNOW what they are doing. Not saying Apple doesn’t, or anything, but to think that a consumer device like the iPhone would compete with the DS is ludicrous.
Will the iPhone have games? Yes, of course, just like the iPod has games. Will these games “threaten” the market Nintendo has? No way in hell…
Apple could threaten Nintendo? Sorry I thought comic relief was over for this year.
Hand held gaming is about high level of fun for a low cost, of which neither Apple is capable of. I mean £500 for a phone, which doesn’t work like a phone very well, and Apple’s cult subjects think it can fight with histories best hand held games maker with a product which isn’t designed for games? I dont really hate Apple’s products. I hate their users, because they often come out with rubbish like this; which only re-enforces the view that they dont try any other products incase, they may find something better than the over priced Apple object they are currently using.
Many dedicated gaming companies have tried for hand held domination and failed against Nintendo. Sega (Game Gear) Atari (Linx) Sony (PSP) Nokia (N-Gage QD) NeoGeo (Neo Geo Pocket Color) TurboGrafx (TurboExpress). I cant remember the last time an Apple produced game or a game the will run on an Apple was any where near the top 50 in the game charts.
Besides, you are forgetting the type of people Apple lovers are. They would rather spend time sitting in starbucks sipping a double cappachino posting on Apple forums why they love the latest , iDVD, iPhone, iPod, iChat, iTunes, i(insert random noun or verb here) pointless and meaningless feature just added to their MAC OS, than actually having fun playing a game. Plus an idea of a game is totally alien to a MAC user any way.
I hope the iPhone/Apple don’t try and take on Nintendo in the gaming market. The iPhone should concentrate on what it really should be for and that is a phone, a music player and a few other cool things. Not a games console! Don’t ruin it!
some other spins…
1. iPhone is a high-end market…Nintendo could offer games directly on the iPhone…they could even charge more…wouldn’t their margins be a lot higher just selling games to the 10million plus people who are rich enough to pay 500+ for a phone and willing to fork out 30+ for each game ? Do a distribution deal with Apple…
2. Apple + Nintendo. Dont know what the market cap of Nintendo is however this combination will be a huge competitor for MS and Sony…specially if Apple is serious about media box in the home strategy. Today if you want a HD/Blue ray DVD player and are a gamer….PS3/XBOX are the way to go…Apple doesn’t even make it on the short list with Apple TV.
The iPhone doesn’t even have the functions of other much cheaper phones, maybe they should be working on that rather than trying to take on Nintendo. Many have tried to beat Nintendo in the handheld market and all have failed, Apple with their overpriced hardware and control freak mentality will not fair any better.
Time has shown how well Apple are at judging emerging markets and then entering those markets with an ‘appropriate device’. What you see now in the iPhone is a device that is aimed at re-educating the market as to what a device in your pocket might be used for. Further evolutions of the device are where gaming kicks in. Expect further versions of the device to include voice recognition, motion sensing and with the capacity to have peripherals plugged in.
Apple games will go the same way the N-Gage went – down the pan
The iPhone has no gaming engine video card so it will never have the capability to beat the PSP on raw power, and it will never be able to catch up with Nintendo on it’s dominance for fantastic (gimicy) games as that is why Nintendo is and always has been so dominant.
The price of the iPhone and iPod is still far too high without any of these gaming requirements, controller, decent battery, gaming media storage ports, video processor, core processor, etc etc
Sony and Nintendo will be more than happy when their early generation devices are still better and cheaper than the usual Apple style over function devices that Apple fanboys constantly harp on about.
You sir maybe smug, but you’re a fool to dabble in something you know nothing about.
I think you’ll find it’s the fanboyism rather than the smug that gets everywhere.
The iPhone will never touch the handheld (PSP,DS,etc) games market. It’s a nice idea that Apple and Nintendo will marry up but it ain’t ever gonna happen. Sure, Apples stuff looks good but Nintendo have done a pretty good job of coming up with some iconic designs over the years all by themselves. And Shigeru Miyamoto beats Steve Jobs hands down every time for consistant innovation.
Nintendo certainly doesn’t need Apple when it comes to technical prowess, just look at the Wii and DS (although touch screen gaming is soooo last year!…just don’t tell the iPhone). Also, Apples current stance of not opening up the iPhone to outsiders means that any developement for it is being stiffled at best.
Sure, there might be some games that come out for the iPhone at some point but without the buttons I can’t see Mario making an appearance and as for Snake or Master Chief, forget it. So what does that leave the iPhone as a killer app? hmmmm, not much really. And how would Apple deliver these games? Download into flash memory? No second hand games market there then.
Apple should just stick to what it’s doing rather than attempt to be all things for all people. The iPhone is a for the trendy consumer. The majority of business users will go elsewhere and the same can be said for the majority of gamers. Put simply, we can get something 100x better for far less money.
This has got to be the most deluded and uneducated prediction I’ve ever heard of. Working in a game store, I can tell you that the DS lite sells far more units than any other console today, hands down. Nintendo have almost nailed the handheld console that requires no target audience because it pleases all. Nothing will compete with it for a long long time.
But look on the bright side, Apple would be proud to have a true fanboy. Even if everyone else thinks you’re an asshole, they love you.
With worldwide Nintendo DS sales of over 47 million, I think the IPhone will always be playing catch up.
You also fail to mention that no matter how good the hardware is for any games machine its the games that sell it. The PSP is the superior machine to the DS yet its games are poor in comparison, hence its sales are far lower than the DS.
Apple have never embraced gaming, they had a perfect opportunity when they switched to Intel processors to take a significant chunk of the gaming market away from the PC as many gamers were fed up with the Windows and Vista. They have all but ignored a vital part of why people choose a PC over a Mac.
This isnt Apple Vs Nintendo, its Apple Vs Mario.. and we all know who will win that one dont we…
I agree with the above comment, the buttons would ruin the overall style of the Iphone, why try to take everthing over, don’t be greedy Apple, let the others have their share too…………..
Well, some of us have had the forward thinking for some years. Back in the mid 50’s we acquired a plastic screened projection (Ferranti) TV with adjustable line viewing & as a small child I was convinced it meant I could watch a TV program on another channel any time after it had been broadcast (VCR inbuilt!) I knew it was going to happen. Then in 1981 when I started using my first Apple II at home and had to use PC’s at work I predicted all my problems would be solved and I’d only have to use the Apple computer operating system.
Now there is the hastle of being a silver surfer without wanting a bag full of technology. Yup, I’m looking forward to my iphone/camera/ipod/gamesplayer/video and satnav-gps all in one handheld. My head is full of a lifetimes worth of useful info and I’m not prepared to clutter it with trying to remember umpteen operating systems/interface protocols. Until I have my one ‘simple’ gadget that connects seamlessly with my iMac and Macbook I’ll make do with a hand me down mobile phone from ‘Techno Son’, borrow his digital camera and mix & match ipods of mine. I’ve never played games on my mobile but if the Apple gadget I want has games you bet they’d probably be worth playing. Sometimes simplicity wins through and those of us who were students of ‘Small is Beautiful, Form follows Function and The Waste Makers still have our ideals.
On the subject of Games Machines I have never been a computer/games consol player/fan even with a Son who has used a computer/games consols for 19yrs untill he bought a Wii. Now if only the graphics on the basic games package were as sophisticated as the ‘shoot’em up’ stuff I’d be hooked. At last a game system where one isn’t sat down and can now really interact with the action and apply some physical skill learnt over the years. This is the way forward for us retired folks to get some exercise at home, but who is even thinking about developing the games for the hundreds/thousands of us senior citizens with our considerable spending power. Carpet bowls anyone? Just incase it adds to the tone of my views, yes I am female, English and resident in England and a an Apple devotee.
It’s amazing just how self-important some bloggers feel they are. And how clueless they are about what makes a gaming product successful.
Thanks for the reminder.
this crap can´t even challenge the best Nokia, SE and Samung PHONES let alone gaming consoles…get a grip you apple tards
First Apple must enable the entire capacity of the bluetooth, allow sending MMS, let the iPhone record video… and then it can start thinking about other stuff.