“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 and Nokia,” Brian Caulfield writes for Forbes.
“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… The iPhone and the iPod touch combine the touch-sensitive screen of a Nintendo DS with the motion sensitivity of the Nintendo Wii,” Caulfield writes.
“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… Moreover, Apple has struggled to master gaming on the Mac, with a far wider array of titles available for machines running Microsoft Windows,” Caulfield writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple hasn’t struggled to “master gaming on the Mac,” game developers have struggled with (or ignored) the Mac platform – even though Mac users in general have more disposable income and are more likely to pay for software than their Windows counterparts. As Mac continues to take market share from Windows, more and more developers are looking at the Mac again (or for the first time).
Caulfield continues, “The ability to pour fresh software into the iPhone, wirelessly, at the touch of a button already has game developers interested… Sophisticated games such as Electronic Arts’ 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.”
Full article here.