Thursday, August 11, 2011

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

The iPhone 5 News Blog News Feed

iPhone 5 Expected To Overtake Nintendo 3DS As Top Mobile Gaming System, But Is Gaming Better On An iPhone?

Posted: 11 Aug 2011 08:59 AM PDT


iphone 5 and nintendo 3ds concept

3D UK Artist Olivier Demangel's Rendering of his iPhone & Nintendo 3DS concept. Neat-o!

Analysts expect the iPhone 5 to be the catalyst in launching Apple into the lead position in mobile gaming, edging out even the Nintendo 3DS. But when it comes to gaming, is the iPhone really better than what the Nintendo 3DS offers?

The picture that analysts are now painting about Apple, the iPhone 5, Nintendo, and the 3DS, is the mirror opposite of conventional wisdom about these two leading tech companies and their corresponding mobile gaming devices. Apple, which has never supported gaming very well (it can still be painful to find game titles for the Mac), is now being touted as the next market leader in mobile gaming, with the iPhone 5 ushering in a new generation of Apple gamers. Nintendo, on the other hand, is seen to slipping in the mobile gaming market share with its innovative 3Ds.

Jonny Evans at Computerworld has a great blog about it today, wherein he states that “Games are the biggest App Store category. This has led a coterie of games developers to jump into Apple's iOS embrace, and generated some incredibly cool moments,” explaining how Apple’s embrace of gaming apps — especially free ones — for iOS has ushered in almost an “open source” feeling for game developers and gamers alike — a sensation not usually felt in Appledom.

Nintendo, on the other hand, continues to maintain a closed environment for game developers: “"Apple now has a far better relationship with games developers than ever before — except with Nintendo, where management steadfastly refuse to make their games available through iTunes. They want to use their hit titles as inducements to get gamers onto their platforms, and while the company remains a big business, revenue is falling and shareholders are in dissent."

You can read Jonny’s full article, as well as a few other hand-picked articles about this story here on the iPhone 5 News Ticker.

The crux of all these articles about Apple’s eventual overtaking of the mobile games market has mostly to do with the advent of games in the app store and their widespread popularity among gamers. This makes a lot of sense because, as more and more young people come to own an iPhone, they are naturally going to want to play games on it, since every generation for the past 30 or so years have been gaming generations.

But what all of these articles fail to discuss is whether or not the iPhone is a better piece of gaming hardware than the Nintendo 3DS?

Unlike the extremely cool rendering of an “iPhone Nintendo 3DS” by Olivier Demangel, the iPhone (and ostensibly the iPhone 5) doesn’t offer much in the way of gaming hardware. Sure, it has a gyro and the touch screen, but it fails to deliver the good like the Nintendo 3DS. Love it or hate it, the dual-screened approach to gaming employed by the 3DS is truly next-generation and in line with the rise of dual joysticks — which are almost ubquitous now on gaming controllers — as well as the ingenious Wiimote.

The 3DS even delivers on the dual joystick design, while also giving gamers touch control as well.

3D has been a bit of a controversy for the 3DS, but Nintendo gives the gamer the option of toning the effect down — or turning it off completely. The iPhone 5 most likely will not have a 3D screen, which will be yet another empty option for iPhone gaming.

It very well may be that the iPhone 5 will live up to these new gaming expectations, but I don’t think it will be a result of the iPhone being a superior gaming device. The phenomenon has more to do with Apple winning the war on the development and distribution angle, and the fact that mobile gadget users want their phone, internet access, camera, and gaming all in one device. Because Nintendo has not jumped into the smartphone market (yet), the 3DS is a cumbersome device; you don’t want to have to carry it around with you in addition to your iPhone.



Wii! Nintendo To Jump Into the Tablet Race — A Sign of Things To Come?

It wouldn’t surprise me if Nintendo begins to take on Apple tit for tat in other market segments. We already know that they will be tapping the popularity of tablet technology with the up-coming Wii U tablet controller. The Wii U tablet is not on par with a device like the iPad 2, to be sure — instead, “think of the Wii U as a sort of DS and Wii hybrid, combining touch and motion controls, with an on-screen HD gaming experience,” according to CNET. The Wii U will be able to be used with the Wii as a controller, or on its own as a portable device. Could it be a sign of a challenger to the iPad to come?

And if Nintendo has its eyes on tablets, how about smartphones?

For my part, Nintendo is right up there with Apple — I consider them to be an eternally innovative company, and I love how they managed to catapult the wii past Playstation and XBox as the mainstream console of choice, in spite of having inferior graphics. Since the early days of the NES and GameBoy, they’ve been quite Apple-like in their approach to R&D, and if there is any company that could ever give Apple a run for its money as far as creativity is concerned, it’s Nintendo.

By

Please be sure to share this article on Facebook, Twitter, and any other social networking site you frequent. It really helps the blog!