Katie MarsalFurther shifting attention on the iPhone towards gaming, an Apple executive has out-and-out stated the device is a genuine competitor to the best handheld consoles on the market.
At the developer gathering, the official urged developers to forget about the handset as a traditional cellphone and, as game developers, to think of it strictly as a game console.
"It's not a phone, it's a console experience," Geleynse is reported as saying.
While a bold statement, the claim is in line with an increasingly gaming-centric marketing strategy at Apple. Virtually all of the electronics firm's video ads for the second-generation iPod touch have focused on gaming, while the majority of paid apps at the App Store have typically been games.
Other parties are also known to be getting involved as well. Electronic Arts on Friday said it will host special events at flagship Apple retail stores in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco during December to promote the iPhone and iPod touch as gaming platforms and show off the software company's game library.
Apple hasn't necessarily needed to ask for help to position its touchscreen handhelds as gaming devices, though, and has been achieving similar or better sales than offerings from Nintendo or Sony. Nintendo recently touted NPD Group data noting that it sold a near-record 1.56 million DS handhelds during November, but is likely to be outpaced by Apple's iPhone sales alone: in summer, the company sold 6.9 million iPhones, or an average of 2.3 million cellphones per month.
In a presentation, id Software co-founder John Carmack also spoke of the fast ARM processor and PowerVR graphics in the iPhone and iPod touch as technically superior to either the DS or Sony's PSP, likening it more to Sega Dreamcast performance than the scaled-down hardware of Apple's freshly established rivals.
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121 Comments
what can't the iphone do? its a phone, mobile internet device, music player, and now gaming platform. The App Store is making it the most versitile device that defies catagories.
So, when will all this gaming hysteria leak over to the Mac desktop? When will Apple announce the iMac as a competitor to the PS3?
I really think that it's silly to declare the iPhone a challenger to the DS. Yes, it has better graphics but so does the PSP. What do the PSP and DS have in common? They are both designed to be gaming systems, something that the iPhone was not. While I do think that the iPhone can revolutionize what Cell phone gaming is, that's all it will do. It will not touch the level of games on the DS or PSP. Not because it's incapable, but because they're selling to two separate markets.
iPhone controls limit what kind of games are produced. There are way too many racers that use the accelerometer. Nothing stands out anymore.
So, when will all this gaming hysteria leak over to the Mac desktop? When will Apple announce the iMac as a competitor to the PS3?
Well, I believe thats why they are holding out on updating the Apple TV (one of the reasons). When the update arrives it's gonna be marketed towards gaming to a much larger extent.