Nintendo Afraid of Apple, Apple Not Afraid of Nintendo

Tweet

Nintendo has been riding the Wii dragon for a long while now but it looks like the future doesn’t look as bright as it always seemed to be. The company has reported the first drop in profits in a long time and in the following months it will have to battle Sony and Microsoft, and, most importantly (that’s what Nintendo says), Apple.

As you already know Sony and Microsoft will make their motion control gaming solutions available to passionate gamers later this year. That’s certainly a move that will affect Nintendo in the very near future and I think I made this point in the past while reporting on the progress of the PlayStation Move and the Project Natal.

Although the Wii has sold a lot better than the PlayStation 3 or the Xbox 360, gamers will probably return to Sony and Microsoft once developers start launching more and more competitive motion controlled games for their consoles. After all, the Wii still can’t offer a similar gaming experience when it comes to graphic performance and there’s no Wii 2 in sight ready to correct that problem.

But it’s neither Microsoft nor Sony that Nintendo is afraid of. It looks like Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, has told his senior executives that Apple, with its iPhone and iPad, is the enemy of the future.

Yes, the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad can definitely be some very interesting gaming devices but real gamers will probably also want a console in their house. On the other hand Apple is making significant progress when it comes to “regular” gaming too, and I am referring to Valve’s recent Mac client that’s supposed to arrive any day now. So yes, Apple’s universe can offer lots of support for various gaming endeavors but that’s not really Apple’s main income source.

And while Nintendo definitely has to come up with better and better DS successors to fight well against the iPhone, iPod touch or iPad, I still think they should be a lot more worried about Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s PlayStation Move that are going to be available in stores later this year.

What console do you currently own?