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haxxiy on 28 October 2010
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UncleScrooge said:
haxxiy said:
UncleScrooge said:

If smartphones truly are a threat to Nintendo's and Sony's handheld business, fine. But so far all claims seem to be based on slowing DS sales... and those are clearly a result of slowing support and the age of the hardware.

The point is that the iPhone alone for instance is selling like 1m a week. If you consider the small costs of developing to it and the number of people that will casually buy games on a smartphone (let's say 25% to be on safe grounds) and you'll see how tempting the business is becoming. For me at least there is a considerable chance of the 3DS and the PSP-2 being devoid of third party support on the middle term.

1 million games (which sounds low) or one million iPhone units? Because that would equal 52 million iPhones per year. Maybe 1 million iOS devices?

Sure the iPhone is a very attractive market for developers but so far it looks like the iPhone is expanding the market, not competing with the DS.

Don't get me wrong I don't doubt the iPhones potential to eat into Nintendo's market but so far this is only backed up by slowing DS sales and no real data.

And Nintendo's biggest markets which are children, core gamers and most expanded audience members (like women around the age of 40, elder people, families) won't start buying iPhones because they are not part of the iPhones target market.

One million iPhones per month - yes, it was the 4G's release quarter, but still it's Apple we are talking about here. They are expected to ship about 21m Iphones 4G in the next quarter, bringing their total to 35 million iPhones in six months alone. There is reason to be afraid, so to speak.

But yes, I kind of agree with you. After the next-gen handhelds launch, two months will have to pass before it can be made any concrete statement on the matter. For now we can only speculate.