Well, at least according to Nintendo's Satoru Iwata they are. Seems pretty overdramatic -- I mean, maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it seems as if Nintendo might be, oh, I dunno ... just a tad threatened? It wouldn't really surprise me, considering that Nintendo has pretty much enjoyed well above 90% of the mobile gaming market for a good decade and a half or so. Sure, there's been some minor competition in the past from Ban Dai and SNK, but neither the WonderSwan nor the NeoGeoPocket managed to make many inroads outside their home territory, and even that Korean upstart GamePark has had a tough time appealing to more than hardcore gamers and emulation enthusiasts. So, given that the last real competition of any marginally significant size was in the late 80s/early 90s from Sega and Atari, and to a lesser degree NEC (all of whom N still beat handily), they have ruled the mobile roost for a long damn time. (Okay, the PSP has been marginally successful, but nowhere near Nintendo's level of success.) Now Apple is successfully nibbling away at their marketshare and Iwata is nervously flinging bags of flaming poo at Steve Jobs while trying to incite an intifada by the Nintendo faithful against Apple. This is going to be kind of entertaining to watch, I think.
lol this made it to the front page of TA. You should just freelancefor them instead and get paid while your at it The problem with Nintendo systems is that N has a history of not really caring about 3rd party developers and only their games seem to sell well on the systems. Sure theres games like Final Fantasy, Castlevania DS and those games designed for teenaged girls but the Mass Nintendo audience only seems to know and care about Mario and Pokemon games. I could care less about playing Nintendo games on the go now and I'm perfectly happy with paying 1 to 10 dollar high quality games made from smaller developers EDIT: I just found out that Edge is back on the app store and only 99 cents :-O This is easily an AAA title and compares to some of the better puzzle platform games the DS sells for 20-30 dollars! Take that Nintendo!
seems about right. I own a PSP and an iPod Touch - eventually I'd like to have a DS as well for the Nintendo games I like (I grew up on Zelda, and Mario). That being said, both Sony and Nintendo portable systems seem to lack games. I love my PSP don't get me wrong, but there are only like 13 games I like on it and there isn't much on the horizon, and that is always the case with any Nintendo system. The touch on the other hand feels more like a portable PC with hundreds of games - I currently have 34 high quality titles on mine that I am playing through and there are more being released all the time. Plus they are reasonably priced, polished (for the most part), and constantly updated. I too hope that Apple takes over the portable gaming market, I'd love to see Nintendo licensed games on my touch
I'd like to see what Satoru actually says about this, not some "sources close to the company". Not saying Apple defintely isn't a player in the gaming market, but I don't think Satoru actually said what they're claiming he said. Anyways, Nintendo knows what they're doing in regards to the portable market. Nobody is gonna see Nintendo games on anything but Nintendo consoles any time soon.
*whisper* You may not know this but Apple has taken nothing from Nintendo. That supposed pie chart a while back was in terms of revenue, and all it showed is the overall market expanded because Nintendo actually gained revenue within that period meaning they lost absolutely nothing. Secondly, how did you get "and Iwata is nervously flinging bags of flaming poo at Steve Jobs"? Do you not know Iwata? He is one of the most level-headed businessmen out there, his impressions and views on competitors calm and calculated. So with this in mind how do you get that babble you posted from a statement that wasn't even confirmed to be stated in the first place?
Would not happen. Yamauchi would sooner kill everyone within Nintendo and burn everything than allow Nintendo to go software only. People don't seem to understand that the reason Nintendo is able to produce the software they have is because they also make their own hardware. You cannot divide their software and hardware sides, unlike in other companies the two 'sides' are one and the same within Nintendo. As of Feb 2010 the Nintendo DS has over 108 million seller games, 63 of which are third-party. Seriously, people really need to stop carrying these incorrect assumptions about Nintendo because the reality is completely different from their viewpoint on the situation. Yeah, take that Nintendo for being able to sell 20+ million selling games but without having to join the race to the bottom in order to appeal to fickle consumers...
I personally hope all three stay in the "handheld war" or whatever you want to call it. Just like I couldn't just live with just a iPod Touch, I wouldn't be satisfied with just a DS or PSP either. If I had to choose I guess I would choose a PSP, but why choose when you can have all three?
The only level-headed and non-fanboy viewpoint on the whole situation, good on you. Not least because it would be the most beneficial position for any and all companies EDIT: which in turn benefits us most of all as it forces companies to push to the best of their ability. Competition >>>>>>>>>> silly fanboy-wishing monopolies. I've never understood the hope for companies to be ruined.
This. I just want to use the product, I don't need to root for the company who developed it like it's a sports team. They have my money; what else do they need?
I just don't see Apple being much of a threat to Nintendo-I think the demographics for both companies are different enough (though there is some overlap) that both will be able to stay in the game, so to speak. And as long as iPhones and iPod Touches have such crap battery life, they'll never be a serious threat. My biggest problem with both companies are these incremental hardware upgrades that come out every year. Certainly I have a bit more disposable income since I'm single with no kids, but that doesn't mean I'm going to plop down anywhere between 200-400 bucks for a portable game system or mp3 player every 12 months. I also doubt the quote attributed to Satoru. If anything, I can see him saying, "Hey the PSP isn't going anywhere, they're no longer competitive with us, so let's focus on what Apple's doing." which is only good business sense. You check out the competitors and see what they're doing and go after their market share. Personally, I like my DS and have about 200 games I've picked up since its release and wouldn't trade any of them for an iPhone app-not even Chaos Rings, and I love that game. Simply because iDevices play games doesn't make them a portable gaming system. They were never designed to be one. The fact the app store took off kind of put them in the position of having to make it seem like they're gaming systems, but they're not and never will be.
The DS and PSP are certainly worthy of being around as handheld devices and they have fuller games than the iphone, but the iphone has all kinds of wacky creative apps and games coming out every day all day, a much wider variety of themes/game types and they're much cheaper allowing idevice owners to purchase multiple games at once and feel better about risking their money. Plus you got the music, phone, internet, video on the idevices... the DS and PSP are kids stuff compared to the iphone.
Whoa, lighten up there, Francis. I was using metaphor and hyperbole for the purposes of snarky humour. Calling Apple "the enemy of the future" is ridiculous posturing, especially after Reggie Fils-Aime just last month stated that the iPhone lacks profitable viability as a gaming platform -- a blasé position of tacit superiority that runs in opposition to Iwata's dick-waving proclamation of victory over Sony and subsequent declaration of war against Apple. I'm not saying that the iPhone is a threat to Nintendo -- if anything I think the venn diagram of iDevice vs. dedicated portable gamers would show only a relatively small degree of overlap, and many in both camps who own both, and there are a number of reasons for that which should be fairly obvious. I'm saying that Iwata's statements are rather over the top and make him look like he now considers Apple a legitimate and imminent threat to his domain and is worried they might win -- and that's ridiculous. It was a showboating, muscle-flexing, gauntlet throwing show of strength that was as unnecessary as it appeared to be insecure. Nintendo is quite comfortably on top in the mobile gaming world. They've always been on top. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. Jumping up and down and waving his arms and puffing out his fur with a massive army at his back when the "enemy" is still in the next continent driving a Prius to the "war" makes him look foolish.
true it is definitely more than just a portable gaming system, however I primarily use my touch because it does having massive gaming capabilities. I mean my PSP is great - but it is far from truly portable, being as bulky as it is. My ipod I can take everywhere - I can do text editing, gaming, got my music, internet - its a computer in my pocket. The games are more like computer games as well - I mean The Quest would have been right at home on my old 486 circa 1993. I love it.
I don't really see any reason to doubt it. It may be that the statement was paraphrased, but I can't come up with a credulous reason why such a source would just make this stuff up without including the word "tinfoil."
