Videogame analyst and professional bear breeder Michael Pachter has been chatting about portable gaming, sharing his rather apocalyptic outlook for the future of handheld gaming devices like the DS and PSP. According to Pachter, these devices are under threat from the iPod Touch, a machine that represents the most dangerous foe a game publisher ever encountered.
"I think the iPod touch is the most dangerous thing that ever happened to the publishers, ever," explains Pachter on the latest Bonus Round. "It's going to be a different audience, it's going to be young kids because iPod Touch is USD 199 this Christmas, it'll be USD 149 next year, USD 129. When it's USD 99, every nine-year-old kid is going to have one of those instead of a DS or a PSP, and if you train kids that this is the game that you want to play ... How about Tetris? Why would you pay USD 20 for Tetris when you can get it for USD 6.99 or USD 3.99 on iPod touch?"
I'm not sure how much Apple will usurp Nintendo and Sony this generation, but the company cannot be counted out as a force in games. Apple is indeed a significant threat, and you certainly don't need an analyst to see that. What do you think, though? Is the iPod a threat, or will it take a lot more than that what Apple's packing to undermine Nintendo's tenacious grip on the portable gaming scene?
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
7:20 PM on 10.15.2009
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What?
Which is a good point. With publishers just RUSHING to quickly cash in on the iPhone craze, porting their most popular IPs over, like Doom, Rock Band, Lumines, etc, are they hurting the sales on their more expensive ("real") versions?
IT won't replace gaming for real gamers. Only 9 year olds who don't know what a real game or gamer is.
At the karate school I teach at, I see kids playing their DS's every day. Probably 45% of our students from the age of 6 - 16 have them. I even know a 4 year old girl who has her own DS.
The iPod Touch/iPhone is not a gaming device, people don't buy it for the games. Of the many people I know who have iPod Touches/iPhones (none of them are below the age of 16 might I add), NONE of them use it for games. I only have one game (Myst), and I don't even play it. We'll see what Apple does in the future, but for now it's no freakin' contest.
Apple can't make games, the iphone and itouch are NOT gaming devices.
DS and PSP are true gaming devices. Up yours apple and yours too pachter
On the flip side, iPhone is the domain of the indie developers, be they aps or game creators. Big publishers could easily pass on the small amounts of money to be made here, but I guess they like the kind of freedom Apple offer, a trick Nintendo and Sony have yet to learn.
DS2 will do fine, whether iPhone is around or not, as iPhone is still a phone and Apple don't make games themselves, like Nintendo, a major factor and no mistake.
Never underestimate nine-year-old kids.
The real question is not "Why would you pay USD 20 for Tetris when you can get it for USD 6.99 or USD 3.99 on iPod touch?" but "why can someone afford to sell Tetris on the AppStore for 7 or 4 bucks and you still dare to sell basically the same game, with the same development costs, for 20$ or more?"
The threat posed by the iPod is not to gaming platforms, but to the criminally inflated prices of the gaming industry as a whole.
The only real threat I can see from the ipod/iphone is the steady increase in overpriced shovelware companies are releasing.
I do have high hopes for the iPod and its' success, as there are already some great games for it (Meteor Blitz, Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, iDracula, etc). But right now? The DS and PSP are still on top of the mountain, and they probably won't be falling off of it anytime soon.
What I just typed makes about as much sense as anything which has ever spilled out of Pachter's mouth.
And how is minigames that really stink without buttons hurting anyone in the industry? Sure the games are cheap but look at what you get for the money.
With all the momentum Apple has had with their products in recent years, nothings changed for the Macintosh. Its still suicide to make games for a Mac, iPhone will still have its fun homebrew moments, but without buttons and D-pads, I don't feel its a threat to PSP or DS.
I know there's some good third party games on iPhone but as long as the DS n PSP still have awesome first party games and some fresh new interesting IP, people who put gaming first priority will still buy them anyway.
At any rate, this could stimulate some healthy competition for Nintendo and Sony: instead of shamelessly repackaging Tetris for the hundredth time, why not make a game that offers a unique experience? Take for example Pokemon and Katamari: these games have weight behind them not because of the system they're on but because of their standalone quality. This could improve the quality and uniqueness of more handheld games in the future, so I'm not worried. It's not gonna replace typical handhelds. It could potentially become a third competitor, and there's nothing wrong with that.
I could NOT even enjoy tetris on the iphone!
It was really that bad!
Now, for things like Prof. Layton, Animal Crossing, and other games where you just "point and click" with the touchscreen, the iPod Touch is perfect for it.
Also, I would never use my iPod Touch for games exclusively because they charge for firmware updates, so I don't want to be having to pay for a firmware update just to buy the newer games. There is also no media for the thing, so you would be totally locked into buying them from iTunes. At least with the PSP Go, you have the Memory Stick Micro that could potentially be sold with games on it.
But the main reason why the iPod Touch will never completely overtake the handheld market (with their current styled models) is that all Nintendo and Sony need to do is add a touchscreen (that you can use w/o a Stylus) and the accelerometer, and they pretty much have everything they're lacking. Conversely, the iPod Touch can't add buttons without really breaking the look and feel that Apple's going for.
Also, if the PSP can get a good POP3 e-mail program, a calendar, and some "Apps" for productivity and stuff, I may go out and get a PSP instead of upgrading to the next iPod Touch.
++ on the Wii comparison. Plenty of vitriolic "hardcore gamers" reflexively dismiss their wild popularity.
@h5e5l5l5o5 "NO third parties support it XD! Go play your gameloft games...that all they have, and some flash games XD"
About 20% of the App Store is games, over 16,000 titles. That's more than the DS and PSP combined. EA offers nearly 30 titles, and what's wrong with Gameloft? They licensed an adaptation of Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed.