[ # ] Is Nintendo’s DS a New Competitor the iPhone?

/* Posted June 6th, 2008 at 11:44am */
/* Filed under Apple, DS, Nintendo, iPhone */

nintendo ds iphone skin

Forbes magazine thinks that the Nintendo DS’s success as the handheld gaming console dominator could end this Monday when Apple introduces the new 3G iPhone at the WWDC. What makes them so confident? Well the same innovation that the DS brought to the handheld console scene and the Wii to home gaming, namely the touch screen interface and motion sensing capability, is combined into one tiny, neat, and portable little package with the iPhone. Besides that, the ease of getting games onto the iPhone wirelessly is a major draw for game developers.

These points make the iPhone a big winner as a gaming platform, with Sega having already created an impressive demo for Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone when the SDK was revealed. Even the greatly anticipated Spore game will be released on the iPhone concurrently with its PC, Mac, and DS releases. But I wouldn’t count the DS out immediately.

The DS has been around long enough to sell 70.6 million units, compared to the iPhone’s 5.4 million. What the iPhone has going for it is that it’s not only a gaming machine but a cell phone, MP3 player, and GPS unit as well so it’s got a bigger market.

The question is what portion of iPhone sales will be attributed to it’s gaming capabilities and whether it’s enough to topple the Nintendo giant. Not everyone will buy an iPhone to play games but if they buy a DS, they are definitely buying it for gaming. Time will tell whether the iPhone will become a threat, but I am not as certain as the Forbes article that it’s any competition for the DS at all. Nobody is going to buy an iPhone to game with, people will buy it because it’s foremost a phone, with extra capabilities like web browsing, mp3 playing, and GPS… oh and maybe gaming. Since gaming is a secondary or even tertiary feature, the iPhone’s main user base might buy a game or two to play when they’re bored and that’s it. No DS owner would only buy two games because that would be a waste of buying the DS hardware in the first place.

Let’s also not forget the different markets of the iPhone and DS. The DS is much cheaper than an iPhone so I don’t foresee many parents running out to go buy iPhones for their kids on Christmas just because it can play games. Nope, parents are still going to be buying DS’s in the future. Where the markets overlap is perhaps the 18-30 age group where the user base has money to spend, needs a cell phone, but might also want to play games on it. Here is where the iPhone could win. Because, seriously, who over 18 wants to be caught carrying his DS around in his pocket in public? It’s almost embarrassing. The iPhone is much more portable and useful in this case. I think the deciding factor here will be the gaming library available for the iPhone and this will depend on whether software developers can create unique and playable games for the iPhone that will draw gamers away from their DS’s, at least while they’re out in public anyways.