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Apple: Nintendo's New Competitor

Thursday, June 5th, 2008 at 9:20 AM - by

Nintendo has been pretty successful in the handheld gaming market with its Nintendo DS, but that could change once Apple opens the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch for business. The ability to code games that take advantage of Apple's motion sensors coupled with wireless application downloads may be more competition than Nintendo can handle, according to Forbes.

Apple plans to launch its App Store in June, which will give iPhone and iPod touch owners an easy way to buy and install third-party applications even when they are away from their computers. Developers have already been hard at work coding their apps for Apple's handheld devices thanks to the early release of the iPhone software developer kit.

Many of those developers are likely working on games, and they will take advantage of the handheld's true multi-touch interface and built-in motion sensors to create new game interfaces that go beyond the Nintento DS's capabilities.

Electronic Arts and Sega, both big names in the gaming market, have already shown off early versions of iPhone games that looked just as polished as shipping products, and both companies bragged about how easy the coding was. More game developers have been announcing iPhone and iPod touch support over the past few months, which means there will likely be plenty to choose from when the App Store opens its doors, and more will likely follow.

That interest in mobile games could turn Apple's iPhone and iPod touch into serious gaming platforms, and give Nintendo some new competition from an unlikely source.

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Sat Jun 07, 2008 3:33 am

Although it might be interesting to see which games will show up for the iPhone, it is very unlikely that there will be a "intense" competition between these two platforms.

The iPhone is no gaming platform and aims for a totally different clientele than the Nintendo DS. The gaming concept (if you consider one behind the iphone) is very different (dual screen + stylus vs. one touch screen).

If you look at the Windows Mobile / SmartPhone market you will realize that real gaming on these devices (even with proper hardware support) never really took off...

And this will be true for the iPhone/iPod touch as well. Most people who buy the iPhone/iPod touch will sooner or later play games on these devices. But due to their main purpose and functionality only a minor number of owners will stick with that for a longer period...

And as someone who has been playing video games on multiple platforms for a long time: I predict that due to the touch screen as the only input method for the iPhone/ipod touch, game concepts and game controls will be vastly limited... The game concepts will be very unique in the beginning but will end up being rather repetitive after some time. Games that usually need a keypad or more than one button will suffer from this a lot. On-screen buttons will fail because they do not give tactile feedback...

So in my opinion, gaming on the iPhone and iPhone touch will be no competition to serious gaming. Although I am pretty sure that causual gaming will work very well on these devices.

...you will never find a Zelda Phantom Hourglass (DS), God of War (PSP) or CrisisCore:FinalFantasyVII (PSP) on an iPhone... but you will see games like BrainAge, Picross etc. and new concepts on the iPhone (but those games will never have the same budget for development as the previously mentioned ones)...

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