@ crumas2: Nope. No chance. Marketing a new and successful gaming platform requires vastly different concepts, resources, and ideas than marketing something like an iPod.

For one, it requires a disruptive market strategy, of which Apple has none for the iPhone. The iPhone's feature list clearly target it toward the power-user; or, in other words, the type of person who will go out and buy a multimedia handheld device anyway. The iPod, by contrast, was/is simple and intuitive. It does one thing, and it does it well. Thus, you'll understand why one might compare the iPod to the DS and the iPhone to, say, the N-Gage.

Second, it requires a price point that's affordable to the casual consumer. I can't see Grandma or little Bobby running out to plunk down $400 + a monthly fee on an iPhone.

Third, it requires an in-house development studio. The few companies that have attempted to create a gaming platform without an in-house studio, including Apple themselves with the Pippin, have all failed miserably. Now, while it's theoretically possible that Apple could create an in-house studio, they have no experience with the video game market. Therefore, I wouldn't hold my breath on it being any good even if they did.

Furthermore, the iPhone as a product isn't nearly as successful as the iPod. Whereas Apple basically created an entire market with the iPod, something which not even industry giant Microsoft has been able to make a dent in, most recent reports show sales of the iPhone at about 15-20% of smartphone sales on a month-by-month basis. That's respectable, sure, but far from groundbreaking, especially since the smartphone market isn't exactly huge.


@ plaupius: I doubt it. The most it'll do is give iPhone users a few new toys to play around with. The only reason why developers are signing on to making iPhone games is because it's low-risk. All Sega is doing, for example, is a port of Super Monkey Ball, and EA will probably just port a few DS games. That way, even if the games only garner a few thousand sales, they won't be in the hole.

@Garcian Smith

I agree that the low risk is a huge factor in attracting devs, and that was my point. Apple will get developer support, especially from totally new 3rd parties. Actually, that's my hope, I don't want there to be cut throat competition of devs, I want the market to expand to accommodate more devs and thus more innovation and more good games.

You guys mean the DS2 right, cause the DS has sold like 75 million units and is already one of the highest selling consoles of all time. It would take the iPhone 10 years and a billion units sold to reach that type of gamer userbase. iPhone vs DS2 would be the only possibility, and it is almost certain that the iPhone would get owned, lol.

Didn't forbes just name Nintendo like their 3rd biggest company or something?

 New 3rd parties won't risk developing for an unproven platform. And my point with pointing out the low risk factor is that most 3rd parties will just throw a few quick ports on there and call it a day, unless those ports do extremely well.

Apple products are often labeled as the thing to have, the cool kid product. On this alone, whatever they make will sell like hot cakes until their image is tainted.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/06/05/apple-wont-kill-nintendo.aspx

 Someone else has also written a well thought arguement.  I really doubt Nintendo is even thinking of worrying.

Apple Won't Kill Nintendo

I'm always a fan of food for thought, even if the taste test doesn't tickle my taste buds.

But Forbes' Brian Caulfield did exactly that with this week's "Why Apple Could Kill Nintendo DS" article.

His theory is that the iPod touch and the iPhone could threaten the handheld gaming dominance of the DS. It's a ludicrous notion, though I'll give him props for pointing out how Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) gadgets combine two of Nintendo's (OTC BB: NTDOY.PK) most distinctive video gaming features -- a motion-based controller like the Wii console and a touch screen like the portable DS.

Unfortunately for Apple, the similarities end there.

Nintendo's DS offers a clever dual-screen format, with a protective clamshell design, but that's not a deal-breaker for Apple. Nintendo got by on a single screen for ages. Sony (NYSE: SNE) is also holding up well with its uni-screen PSP.

The bigger obstacle for Apple as a force in portable gaming is the lack of buttons. You can't get away with a portable gaming device that lacks directional controls. Apple's touch screen just won't cut it. If you think typing on the iPhone's touch-screen keyboard is a chore, imagine trying to get the kind of responsiveness required for a video game out of the same screen.

The iPhone and iPod touch will do just fine for motion-based games like Super Monkey Ball or arcade classics like Marble Madness and Glover. But they will fail everywhere else.

You don't want to pick a fight with Super Mario
Slaying the DS will never be easy, because if you pick a fight with Super Mario, he's going to bring his friends Donkey Kong, Pikachu, Link, and Metroid, too. Since Nintendo happens to own many of its most popular character games, it is protective enough to avoid porting them over to rival platforms.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has Halo. Apple has nothing more than the halo effect. It will be at the mercy of third-party developers, who will have to wonder if this is a market worth fighting for.

If anything, it is Microsoft's Xbox gaming experience that makes it a more viable threat to Nintendo than Apple. Microsoft is also desperate enough -- having sold just 2 million Zune players since the Zune’s inception nearly two years ago -- to push the issue of repositioning its media player as a next-generation handheld gaming console. It may have many of the same physical limitations as Apple in design, but at least Microsoft knows it has little to lose in getting its head into the game, since there are so few fans to alienate.

Maybe, maybe not. There's already a huge interest in developing for the iPhone OS, but of course I don't know what percentage of those devs are going to make games vs. other apps. But the interest is there already, even before the service has been launched for public. Apple's worldwide developer conference (WWDC 2008) has been sold out for the first time ever, with over 5000 attendees: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/14/wwdc_sold_out_with_over_5000_attendees.html

As for your second point about the ports, I think that's going to be a bit tricky because of the difference in controls. With no buttons you either have to use on-screen buttons, or create another kind of user interface which will probably be very poorly suited for the game to be ported. The iPhone/iPod Touch will require a new kind of user interface paradigm for games, and only certain types of games will fit well enough in that paradigm. It's kinda sad, 'cause it'll be extremely hard to do a beat-em-up for iPhone, but it also opens up totally new possibilities.

The online music business was in it's infancy at the time the iPod was created. They were able to buy SoundJam (iTunes) for almost nothing. The online music was tiny at the time and required little investment to become the biggest fish in a small pond. All the other companies competing in the market were pathetic. 

 This was the biggest missed opportunity ever for Sony and the others of the big 4. Instead of trying to innovate and embrace a new business model, they have fought for their archaic monopolistic model. They have been beaten by then-struggling computer maker.

Gotta agree with FishyJoe, comparing Apple entering with iPod + iTunes is nothing like entering the video game market with a multipurpose device. At this point of time, the DS is unbeatable by anything else than DS2.

And on another note, while Nintendo is quite clearly stated that they are targeting everybody with their strategy, I believe Apple's strategy to be completely different. They are not targeting everybody with their products, each of which has been designed for a different use and different target market. And they are highly succesful in doing that, so they have little reason to change. Right now, they are just building the blocks they need to expand their offering, but not downmarket, instead they are expanding laterally.