Nintendo’s Biggest Threat is Apple, Not Microsoft

[Wiley John Wright]

Who’s a bigger threat to Nintendo, Microsoft or Apple? According to Nintendo the answer is clearly Apple. Nintendo has seen declining sales in recent years and Apple is clearly to blame. The mighty Nintendo once had the lion’s share of the portable gaming market, but that is no longer the case.

When Apple blasted onto the scene with the App Store, Nintendo was unprepared for its immediate success. Nintendo has dealt with competitors in the past, remember the Atari Jaguar and the Sega Nomad. But with Apple’s “Think Different” approach to selling software, Nintendo now faces a genuine threat to their position as market leader. Apple now claims a 50 percent market share of the handheld video game segment. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime recently stated:

“Do I think that in the near term [Apple] can hurt us more than Microsoft? Absolutely.”

At the annual September music event, Apple had much to say about the role they now play in the portable gaming market. Apple now claims to be the number one mobile gaming device worldwide and that they outsell the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP combined. The App Store is key to this success and Apple knows it. The App store offers customers such convenience and value that Nintendo’s reliance on cartridges becomes a hard sell, especially in this economy. People can now buy quality games for as little as 99 cents. Nintendo needs a new game plan if they ever hope to compete with this new way of selling games.

Of course, it isn’t “game over” for Nintendo quite yet. The ace up their sleeve will always be master game designer Shigeru Miyamoto and Mario. Apple does not yet have a video game mascot to help sell their brand and likely never will. Of course Apple is one of the most recognizable brand names in the world, but I don’t think you’ll ever see the Apple logo featured in a platform game, at least not officially.

When the iPod Touch was first released it was a though of as a stripped down iPhone without the telephone. Apple soon made the distinction clear, the iPod Touch was branded a gaming machine and not inferior to the iPhone in any way. This approach has been extremely successful. Another advantage Apple has is the compatibility of games across multiple devices.

Nintendo can hardly compete with Apples well establish app store. The App store literally has tens of thousand of games available, a large percentage of which are free . An iOS device is capable of much more than just game-play and because of this non-gamers have the opportunity to play games on a device they already own. Apple can sell to a segment of society that would never consider buying a dedicated gaming machine.

I own a Nintendo DS, a Sony PSP and an iPhone 4. I am rarely without my iPhone and because of this, I now mainly buy Apps. Over the years I’ve played a few dozen games on the DS and PSP. Since I’ve had an iPhone, I’ve played hundreds of games and currently have about fifty games on my device. Can you imagine carrying fifty game cartridges with you at all times. The iOS as a gaming platform is a tough act to follow, given the ease of use and low-cost of games.

Nintendo is gambling that their new 3DS model will offer gamers something so unique that people will be compelled to buy one. Unfortunately, it is not schedules to be released until next year, well after the lucrative holiday season. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Nintendo and I hope they can adapt to this new way of doing business. Of course, I would love to see Super Mario World 64 make an appearance on the iPhone. That will be a cold, cold day in hell I’m afraid.

Source: All Things Digital

[ShredNasty]

I'll always have love for Nintendo. Back in '89 I got a Nintendo and I've been a gamer ever since. BUT, Nintendo is a fail imo. The DS and Wii lines are miserably behind any curve you wanna look at. Graphics, hardware features and decent games are all mia.....

[NumbaOneI]

Headline error. It's threat not thread.

[topless1967stang]

Headline error. It's threat not thread.

You beat me to it... haha.

Spell check doesn't help in this case.

Alright, where is the Nintendo phone? lol

[Wiley John Wright]

Spell check: Check
Proofread: Check
Proofread the Title: Opps

Thanks, fixed it.

[xerray]

None of the iPhone/iPod/iPad apps could beat Pokémon games like Red Version, Yellow Version, Blue Version and so on. Well in my case haha!

[smsjrtato]

i love the n64 my favorite system , i still actually have one im trying to look for ocarina of time and smash bros,hard to find one below $20

[chrodriguezmarydown]

Thank you nintendo. But like a cheap hooker, I'm done with you. So get out make way for the new hoe in town, say hello to Apple

[Kouper]

Don't get me wrong, I totally dig my iphone, and there are some really fun games on it. However, when Im traveling long distance and want to play a game for more then a few minutes... My iphone always loses to my psp/ds/laptop(depending on the mode of travel of course) The lack of buttons and tactile feel has sort of hurt my appetite for more large scale games... ALthough, playin the SNES on my phone with a wii classic pro.... now that is a riot.

[BenderRodriguez]

None of the iPhone/iPod/iPad apps could beat Pokémon games like Red Version, Yellow Version, Blue Version and so on. Well in my case haha!

That's why you can go get gpSPhone from cydia and emulate and save those games

Wa Ya Yahoooo

[iPhoneAndrew]

Nintendo will always be strong, their products are kid-proof, My old gameboy advance and DS took a beating with drops, and scratchs. And who carries all their cartridges around? Not me, I only worked with 2 games at a time on the go. And their market is strong, iPod touches ain't marketed to children (pre-teen) while the DS is.

However... if you guy's havent noticed Sony's PSP ads have turned into attack ads against apple. I remember the kid mentioning, "No one wants to play a stupid app on your phone, try some real games" etc. If they're attacking apple, they're hurting.

[MrMuffin24]

sales in resent years

*recent

a striped down iPhone

*stripped

can hardly compete with the Apples well establish app store

*with Apple's well established App Store

I’ve play a few dozen games

*played

it is not schedules

*scheduled

Got Grammar?

[MikeThomson]

Emulators aside there are very few iphone games that can compare to a ds or psp game.. most games i play on my iphone i can beat in an hour or two... Then you have games like grand theft auto for the psp that have the same amount of depth as a console game. plus playing games with touch controls kind of really sucks for most games, especially if its virtual buttons taking up space on the screen.

I dont think apple is stealing away any customers from Nintendo, ya they are getting people to play games who normally wouldn't play games, but that same person would never have gone and bought a dedicated portable game system.

[dotFIVE]

Got Grammar?

Grammar was unnecessarily capitalized.

[MXCO]

Who cares about grammar.

Anyways I love nintendo BUT nintendo is not as small and sell cheap games like my iPhone 4.
I own a nintendo 64 and I love it! I play Mario 64 every other day but try to take my iPhone and I'll punch you in the throat
iPhone just offers more then what nintendo does.
And who said iPod touch aren't for kids? Have you seen the report yahoo made about keeping your iPod/iphones away from kids? Yea these idevice are targeting everyone and everything.

[Rob2G]

When iOS gets Zelda, Super Mario bros and Resident evil 1,2 and 3 I'll give up my wii and ds.

[CZroe]

Why mention the Jaguar and Nomad while saying that they have never faced serious competition? You must mean in the portable space, which is why you'd say "Nomad" instead of "Genesis/MegaDrive" (Nomad was a portable Genesis), but then you mention the non-portable Atari Jaguar console. I think you mean Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx/Lynx II. Even so, why mention those when their most serious competitor before Apple was the Sony PSP?

Heck, most of the early handhelda were portable versions of home consoles. The GameGear was just a portable Sega Master System with a higher color mode and an incompatible cartridge slot (required MasterGear converter). I have a portable TurboGrafix 16 "TurboDuo" as well. If I wanted to draw attention to their failed competitors, I'd point out Nokia n-Gage, Game.com, WonderSwan/WS Color, and Neo-Geo Pocket/NGP Color, or even the Atari Lynx/Lynx II, not a home console and a shirt-lived portable version of a home console (Nomad had a controller port and AV/RF TV output, so it was still a home console much like the PSone + LCD or Sega's own Sega CDX). Otherwise, not considering the PSP is just silly.

Spell check: Check
Proofread: Check
Proofread the Title: Opps

Thanks, fixed it.

Uhh... The rest of it is still in serious need of proofreading.

[JLick]

Pokemon and Gameboy was Nintendo's peak...ever since both have fell off...Apple has been doing there thing

Or did it happen in the reverse order?

[klouud]

The 3DS is going to cross into platform territory with its pricing and quality which will therefore pit it against the mobile and console markets. In this economy I don't see a family being able to support the use of a costly home console and a costly portable one.

The 3DS looks really cool, but I don't see it performing as well as the DS did in the markets that it (3DS) will be competing in.

[zoso10]

Nintendo just hasn't been putting out products people want. The wii is ok not amazing, I ended up selling mine. There was a few gamecube games I liked but I still love going back and playing n64.

Maybe Apple should just buy out nintendo as well. Then they'd have the wii and ps3....