It's not every day I get a good chuckle from a business publication, but today's one of those days. Turns out Forbes has a little article posted titled, "Why Apple Could Kill the Nintendo DS." The article centers around the idea that Apple's soon-to-be-launched App Store for the iPod and iPhone will allow more games onto the console, and given that Nintendo has recently started following along Apple's own master plan - don't say anything about your podcuts until the last possible moment to capture all the hype - Forbes seems to think there's a chance Apple's touchscreen phone could take down the less-capable DS at a time when the DS' line-up is starting to weaken.

Thankfully, they don't recognize this as an easy kill, citing the built-in market and success Nintendo has had. But they do say that games getting released on the iPhone and DS with increasing numbers, like Spore, could be a sign that the tables are about to turn.

This won't happen. Nintendo and Sony could get a new rival in the iPhone as part of a changing mobile phone market, but if Apple tries to turn the iPhone into an expensive multimedia device that also happens to play games, they only need look at the PSP to see their future. Sure, Sony's handheld has picked up steam the past few quarters, but that's because Sony is focusing on it more as a gaming handheld with other features and not the other way around. Sony tried to push the PSP as a multimedia device that played games, too, and they got pummeled by a poor library of games, UMDs nobody was really buying, and the fact that they had priced it at over $200 when the DS could be found around $50 cheaper. Plus, the DS is likely old technology, and new handhelds from Sony and Nintendo are almost certainly on the horizon for late 2009-early 2010.

So don't count on the iPhone taking out the DS or even the PSP. It'll find a place in some gamer's hearts, but certainly not everyone's. Especially if I have to be stuck with AT&T to even own one I can use as a phone.