Nintendo: Must differentiate From iPhone
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Nintendo, Iwata, Apple, iPod, iPhone | Themes: Software, Digital Entertainment
Nintendo is feeling the heat from Apple?
Is Nintendo finally feeling the heat from Apple? That may or may not be the case, depending on who within Nintendo is asked the question. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata claims that Nintendo and Apple aren't competitors. He even insists that there will be no rivalry between both companies, calling it "uncomfortable."
But he's also aware that Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch bring a different kind of competition to the table, providing cheap, immediate access to games unlike previous rivals. As of now, Sony's PSP / PSPgo and Nintndo's DSi have caught on to the scheme and now provide downloadable games, however Apple is already ahead by a mile.
Iwata, claiming that Apple isn't a competitor, understands that the iPhone and iPod Touch pose a potential threat. "If we can't make clear why customers pay a lot of money to play games on Nintendo hardware and Nintendo software and differentiate ourselves from games on the mobile phone or iPhone, then our future is dark," he told The Wall Street Journal at a recent company event.
Out of the two Apple units, the iPod Touch poses as the larger threat, starting at $199 and requiring no monthly service cellular fee. The Apple App Store also provides over a thousand games ranging from $1 to $10 that can be downloaded from any wireless access. The Nintendo DSi costs around $170, and already provides a large library of games on SD cards stemming back to 2004. The DSi also features Nintendo exclusives such as Mario and Pokemon.
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I thought the SD slot was only for storing data, not games. You must mean the DS cart slot for games going back to 2004 right? The DS cart's are not SD cards, just to be clear.
They are absolutely in competition. My 9 year old is having a hard time deciding if she'd rather get a DSi or iTouch from Santa and my vote is for the iTouch which has free downloadable games, and very inexpensive ones. Buy a few games for the DSi and you're way over what you spend on an iTouch.
so what are you going to do give a kid a 300 + dollar device and have to monitor which games they buy or buying in general on it. Or are they going to give them a DS or whatever protable device for $150 that they can monitor what they are playing?
the ipod touch is not a gaming device, the ds is a gaming device. those who want to play games on a portable know that they don't buy an ipod touch but rather buy a ds handheld system. the ipod touch is what you call a pda or whatever the current terms are for them. the ipod touch is also classified as a multimedia device, one that allows users to use it for all entertainment purposes. but the trick it, the ipod touch was meant to kill the original ipod. so in the end, most people bought the ipod for multimedia purposes [listening to music and watching videos].
Nintendo > Apple
I rather run max OS X on a fucken n64 then a stupid gayintosh
most of the games on the Ipod touch blow really badly and the touch controls are more annoying then fun most of the time..
anything beyond straightforward/simplistic action games are impossible or frustrating on itouch (I've owned one for 1 year and have more than a hundred games on it). Only slow games are really feasible on it (though I have yet to play Eliminate Pro). That said, the ability to play emulated GBA games on it is pretty cool, even if you can only really play slow/RPG-style games.
The more game companies start optimizing for the platform, the better the games become. I remember about a couple of years ago, the games on iphone/ipod really stunk. Now they are coming out with some really good titles. Multiplayer/online is where the recurring money is and the iphone/ipod really lends itself well here. Being able to impulse buy from the app store versus taking the effort to go to the gamestore and get the game is also more lucrative.
Nintendo ought to do away with the whole cartridge thing and form something up like steam or the app store.