For anyone that knows anything about the Japanese market, the Mindisc was extremely successful.  However, when the iPod came in (emphasis: American Company), it destroyed Sony's portable Music player market that it had their.  That is quite an accomplishment for an American company.

Unlike MS, I really think Apple could make some inroads into the Japanese market if they released a portable gaming device.  What do you think?

Apple would be next king of video game industry. Ipod rocks.

It all depends on the games. MS's biggest failing is real support(not funded) from Japanese developers. I think Apple would actually have a similarly hard time gaining developer support. MS decided to go ahead and just try to sell Western games in Japan though. If Apple decided to not launch unless they had a reasonable amount of Japanese developers on board, they could be successful. However, so could MS. It comes down to the strategy and how successful they are at getting Japanese games. I think Apple could potentially be more successful in negotiating deals given their success in other markets, but they wouldn't have an easy time.

Research and development into regions and understanding the demographics play a key part in winning foreign territories. North America is the easiest region just give them shooters, RPG's, racing games and sports games. Europe is not that much different but the Europeans love there soccer games and racing sims. RPG's and shooters are preferred by Europeans on PC.
As for the Japanese market that is the hardest market to sell to you have to develop games designed to attract the Japanese/Asian culture.

Since iPhone and iPod Touch are Apple's portable console offering... I dunno, how are they selling in Japan?

I don't think you're going to see these devices getting anywhere near the kind of penetration that PSP or DS have, just because of price point alone. That's not to say they won't be successful, they just deliver broader functionality to a narrower market. I don't think Nintendo or Sony will be much phased by Apple carving out a little slice of their market.

iPhone has a lot of competition. The japanese are MUCH more advanced when it comes to smartphones. The iPhone is kind of old news.

Oh yeah. Japanese cell phones also download music, surf the Net and make phone calls.

They've been a natural extension of daily life the past few years, spurred by the Japanese decision to be the first country to upgrade to third-generation mobile-phone networks, or 3G, which increased broadband capabilities and allowed for greater, faster transmission of voice and data. Apple's iPhone, by comparison, operates on a 2G network.

It was 3G that sparked the boom in music downloads that makes it common for phones to be used as portable digital music players here.

And it is 3G that has led the Japanese into a world where they can watch live TV on their phones, use the phone as a charge card to ride trains or buy milk at the corner store or take a taxi, and conduct conference calls between as many as five people. Ticket Pia, Japan's major entertainment ticketing agency, has been selling e-mail tickets to cell phones since 2003.

Didn't apple produce the Pippin or whatever it was called?

yea the worked on the pippin with phillips original idea for it was to use in hotels suprisingly, but the whole thing was so bungled, basicaly aborted in the implementation phase

I doubt it. I think Japanese are more protective of their console companies.

Besides, what could Apple do that Nintendo doesn't already, really.