It seems like the key to being a tech columnist is having discussable opinions about things. Knowledge is for the sissies over in the reporting department. Making pronouncements of either Doom or Ultimate Glory for some new device is the kind of thing that puts (something I like to call “asses in the seats 2.O”) links in the blogs. It is in this spirit of prophecy for page views that Brian Caulfield of Forbes asks whether or not the Apple iPhone could kill the Nintendo DS. Showing the kind of visionary spunk that gets you employed at one of the top business magazines, Caulfield doesn’t let the fact that a clear answer, “no,” already exists.
It’s a good gambit. Like small town residents cheering whenever their name is mentioned on the Tee Vee, the industry, perpetually suffering from “hey we’re relevant too” syndrome, gets excited when one of the big players mentions us. Here is my prediction about Forbes’ prediction: lots of gaming sites will link to it and then it will turn out to be utterly wrong. Things start to go badly in the early paragraphs.
The Nintendo DS has had a good run, too, dominating the market for handheld gaming gizmos despite determined assaults by Sony and Nokia .
The DS didn’t HAVE a good run. It’s HAVING a good run. There are over 70 million of them out there right now. The PSP is doing well too, with over 30 million units sold. But to describe the sad joke that is the N-Gage - a failed Gameboy Advance competitor / phone that launched in 2003 and may not have even sold a million units - as a “determined assault” by Nokia is to severely misunderstand the market.
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.
Leaving aside motion sensing, which the DS doesn’t actually have, Caulfield’s argument is that the iPhone has a touch screen which the DS also has but you can download new software on to the iPhone, and he heard that some companies were making games for it, so it’s a DS killer.
Let’s compare them for real.
The DS is a rugged little single purpose gaming system that retails for $130 in Canada. It has two screens, including a dedicated touch screen and dedicated control buttons, plays GBA games as well as DS titles, has build in local wireless networking for multiplayer gaming as well as a connection to Nintendo’s ‘it just works’ worldwide multiplayer service. It is supported by brands such as Mario, Pokémon and Final Fantasy. You can find it at just about any department store in the world and it’s loved by kids, casual and core gamers.
The iPhone is a multi-purpose device which retails for $400 (minus contract subsidy). It has a single large screen (lord help you if you drop it), no local networking, no wireless gaming service and no library to speak of. In order to buy one, you need to sign up for cellphone service and in order to buy and download games you will need a credit card and an iTunes membership. It is not a device for grubby handed kids, Nintendo’s bread and butter.
If there is any direct competition to be had, it’s between the iPhone and Sony’s rumoured PSP phone. They’ll (probably) cost about the same, and both are convergence devices meaning that for a slight premium, you can get them do to several things that you don’t really want.
It’s too late to kill the DS. The DS is a runaway success. iPhone gaming might have a chance at killing some future Nintendo handheld, but I wouldn’t want to start mouthing off about it. Much as Sony learned when they went after portables, Nintendo is much, much smarter than you think and they know games very, very well.