Yeah, so to speak... It didn't happen since the drastic Gamecubre pricecuts back in 2003. Contrary to what most people think, Nintendo sold the GC at loss for quite a time.

Dude, your sig, what episode?

It really bugs me how every piece of news has to include a tidbit about smartphones competing with handheld consoles. So far we haven't seen anything to back it up, all we've seen is people assuming lower DS sales are a result of a growing smartphone market. But software support for the DS has been decreasing for quite some time now, we haven't had a 10 million seller since 2008 or so and it's reasonable to assume that developers pulled their DS resources in late 2009 to focus on the 3DS. Additionally Nintendo isn't skimming (dropping) prices.

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.

Well, it's a good thing they've finally introduced DSWare then =)

I was expecting them to sell minor games digitally since 2007 when I bought my first DS. I was forced to shamelessly pirate these games. I don't mind to pay, but most of lesser games extremely lack content, so paying $20 plus was a bit too much for me, not to mention bothering with the carts and waiting when my copy arrives.

With this kind of assertion you may as well claim that home consoles will lack support because of growing PC userbase, which is bigger than all home consoles combined, while PC gaming revenue is bigger than X360 and PS3 combined and growing at faster pace.

The fact that you've got a physical distribution cost, retail costs and a cost for Nintendo royalties as well as higher risk in distribution means that your $5 game has to have a minimum of $15 additional costs tacked onto it. This is the reason why 'serious' games are sold on handhelds and even more so home consoles and frivilous games are sold on the low cost distribution platforms. Its easier to sell $15 worth of game for $35 and $30 worth of game for $60 than it is to sell $5 of game for $20. I would get a handheld except that I struggle with the value equation between the cost of the games and the content I percieve that I am getting.

The funny thing is that once the 2nd generation iPad is out, I will consider buying it as a handheld gaming platform. My friend has one and he has multiple great games for $5-10 each and that is great value to me. The fact that an iPad would also be the laptop I could never justify getting due to the performance of my desktop machine and HTPC would be icing on the cake.

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.

I would expect a major drag on their earning is the 3ds. I assume they are spending a lot on development and beginning production. Not to mention a lot of their software development has probably shifted from the Wii and DS to the 3ds. There earnings will suffer until the 3ds is released.

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.