Why Apple Could Kill The Nintendo DS

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Brian Caulfield, 06.05.08, 6:00 AM ET

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BURLINGAME, CALIF -

There's only one company on earth that has come back from behind to
wrest a multibillion-dollar market away from Sony, beat back a
grasping Microsoft and delight tens of millions of customers around
the world in the process.

Sorry Apple (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) fanboys, we're talking
about Nintendo (other-otc: NTDOY.PK - news - people ). The Nintendo
Wii has turned the gaming world on its head, with motion-sensitive
controls and family-friendly games. The Nintendo DS has had a good
run, too, dominating the market for handheld gaming gizmos despite
determined assaults by Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ) and Nokia
(nyse: NOK - news - people ).

You tell us: The iPhone and the iPod Touch combine the touch-sensitive
screen of a Nintendo DS with the motion sensitivity of the Nintendo
Wii. Now add the ability to pour fresh games into the system at the
touch of a button. Will this create a problem for Nintendo in handheld
gaming? Let us know in the Reader Comments section below.

Monday, however, Nintendo will likely face a new and far more
dangerous foe: Apple. Steve Jobs' computer and gizmo maker will likely
launch a long-promised feature, dubbed the App Store, which will let
outside developers pour software into the iPhone and iPod Touch. And
while it's unlikely that, say, a mobile version of Oracle's (nasdaq:
ORCL - news - people ) wonky database will make anyone stand up and
cheer, we already know putting games on the iPhone is a pretty
powerful combination.

To be sure, the Nintendo DS won't be an easy kill. First released in
2004, Nintendo freshened the design of the aging system in 2006, with
the release of the thinner, lighter DS Lite. Yet developers continue
to toil away on ever more sophisticated games for the aging DS, with
an ambitious adaptation of "Guitar Hero" in the works and a slick
adaptation of the PC strategy series "Age of Empire" already on sale,
thanks to the console's sophisticated dual-screen interface. Moreover,
Apple has struggled to master gaming on the Mac, with a far wider
array of titles available for machines running Microsoft Windows.

Nevertheless, Apple is the first to master a pair of tricks that have
made Nintendo's latest products so compelling--a touch-screen
interface and the ability to pick up on motion. The key difference:
Unlike Nintendo, which has created a gaming console with a motion-
sensitive controller and a touch-sensitive handheld gaming system,
Apple has crammed both capabilities into its iPhone and iPod Touch.

The ability to pour fresh software into the iPhone, wirelessly, at the
touch of a button already has game developers interested. When Apple
detailed its software developers kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch
earlier this year, one of the most impressive demos was Sega's (other-
otc: SEGNF.PK - news - people ) version of "Super Monkey Ball" for the
iPhone. Players will be able to maneuver a monkey through a three-
dimensional landscape by tilting the iPhone.

The worst sign: Sophisticated games such as Electronic Arts' (nasdaq:
ERTS - news - people ) ambitious new god-game, "Spore," are already
slated to be released for the iPhone at the same time it goes on sale
for PCs, Macs and the Nintendo DS. Travis Boatman from EA showed off a
project based on Spore that the videogame giant's developers cobbled
together in two weeks that took advantage of iPhone's accelerometer
and touch-screen interface to guide the evolution of a hungry
microorganism.

Looks like the handheld gaming business, so long dominated by
Nintendo, could be about to undergo a little evolution too.

Could the next iPhone triumph over the Nintendo DS in handheld gaming?
Let us know in the Reader Comments section below.

. http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/04/apple-nintendo-iphone-tech-wire-cx_bc_0605nintendo.html

[enrique]

I don't see this happening. There is one thing that makes a multi-
function device like iPhone not an ideal platform for gaming: battery
consumption.

Our communication devices have continued to expand their features, but
battery technology has not kept up. Web surfing alone will sap my
phone's battery in 20 minutes or less.

If you need another reason why the iPhone can't make it as a gaming
platform, you need not look any further than OS X itself. The
Nintendo DS operating system already has the support of top-tier
developers. If they are not developing there, they are developing on
already-established platforms: Windows (including XBox 360) and the
other dedicated gaming platforms.

The iPhone is not that big of a draw to make gamers want to put down
the devices they own already.

> .http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/04/apple-nintendo-iphone-tec...