Apple Bigger Near Term Threat Than Microsoft, Nintendo Of America President Says

http://blogs.forbes.com/briancaulfield/2010/10/21/apple-bigger-near-term-threat-than-microsoft-nintendo-of-america-president-says/

Content. Ask Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime what gives Nintendo an edge and he’ll talk about content. And Nintendo needs all the edge it can get. Competitors are everywhere.

“It’s all about time,” Fils-Aime said during a stop by Forbes’ San Francisco offices Thursday. “I compete with Zynga, I compete with surfing the net, I compete with the newspaper.”

Oh, and then there’s Apple.

Look just at the gaming business, however, and Nintendo is doing pretty good. In 2009 Nintendo sold more than 20 million gaming devices. That’s more than Microsoft and Sony put together. Same with the year before.

If you want to find someone doing that kind of volume you’ve got to look outside the game business. At, say, Apple, which is pushing games on the iPhone and iPod touch. Apple sold more 14.1 million iPhones alone during the quarter ending in September.  “Do I think that in the near term they can hurt us more than Microsoft?” Fils-Aime says. “Absolutely.”

Here’s where Nintendo has an edge, Fils-Aime says. The iPod and iPhone are great for casual games like “Angry Birds” that provide a welcome distraction. Games on the Nintendo DS, by contrast, can consume. Fils-Aime admits he’s spent 150 hours playing Nintendo’s Dragon Quest.

That kind of content is where Nintendo dominates: fourteen of the 20 best selling games for the current generation of gaming devices are from Nintendo, Fils-Aime points out. At least eight of those (by my count) are built around Nintendo’s Mario franchise.

So can Apple trump that? Apple Chief Steve Jobs is a dangerous man. Jobs almost certainly doesn’t think all day about how to build a better Mario game, however. People like Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto do.

Look for more on what’s coming from Nintendo for the holiday season from my colleague Oliver Chiang, and on Nintendo’s competition from Quentin Hardy.

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I'm one of those people who plays more and more on his iphone then his DS.. It also makes me looks slimmer not having my DS in my pockets...

because regie let me make this obvious point cough ... microsoft dont have a handheld portable duh

I would call Window Phone 7 with Live integration a serious effort to step into  portable gaming..

I think its because Nintendo dominates the home industry with an iron fist. Reggie and Nintendo also know that Nintendo has another console in the works that they believe will blast Microsoft out of the water. But developers are starting to complain Apple is cutting into handheld markets. The cheap 1$-5$ games are really taking their toll on the market acording to several developers.

So the question is why didn't Reggie say long term. He said short term? I think he knows that the beginning of 3DS is going to be a battle due to the high price of the 3DS and he knows that the I-Phone not PSP2 is going to be Nintendo's biggest competitor for the handheld market.

Software market is what I think he's thinking off, will more software profit come from Apple or Nintendo platforms?

In the end I think Nintendo will be unable to actually do a dent to I-Phone but in the same way I doubt Apple can do a dent to Nintendo. Which is why Reggie said Apple is a short term threat!

Didn't he said something similar way back ago ?

That was Iwata but later he said it was an issue with the translation!

Of course Apple are a threat. They have outcasualed the casual!

I think also Apple are the biggest threat to Nintendo's dominance at the moment.  But I don't know anyone that has bought a game on an 'i' device instead of getting a DS game though

“It’s all about time,” Fils-Aime said during a stop by Forbes’ San Francisco offices Thursday. “I compete with Zynga, I compete with surfing the net, I compete with the newspaper.”

If the DS competes with the newspaper, it certainly competes with the 360. If someone owns a 360 and a DS, then them buying a 360 game will reduce the time and money they have for DS games.

He didn't actually say that. "I compete with Zynga, I compete with surfing the net, I compete with the newspaper. Do I think that in the near term they can hurt us more than Microsoft? Absolutely."