you would think these people would do their research before writing some crap like this that ends up making them look totally stupid. how is a 500 to 600 dollar device kill a 127 dollar gaming console. not even sony could take out ds. at least wait til the new iphone is out before even thinking of making such stupid comments

kabron

I think that the day will come when phone-games have a relationship to handheld consoles similar to the relationship between computers and tv-consoles.

The iPhone is already so much more powerful than a psp/ds, and the new one is likely to be more so. Likewise we can expect some pretty sophisticated Android devices before too long, etc. Devs won't sit still when these things are out there - there will be some great games. I think the DS/psp will continue to have very strong markets, and probably better games - just as home consoles tend to have more/better games than home computers.

cbandes

@regnez:

No. In videogames, death is the only answer. Even Viva Pinata, where you can cruelly bash the Horse Pinata's head in with a shovel.

Chromeo

Just like video killed the radio star! hehe

Oden

I think iPhone and DS aren´t in the same league. Even more, they play different sports. They aren´t competitors at all.

literato

Yeah, and the Wii doesn't have a chance against the PS3 either. It just don't have the horsepower to compete!

fivepoint

Why does one potential gaming platform always have to kill another? Can't we all just get along?

regnez

not gonna happen. I don't even think its gonna be a contender.

odnet

yes...the psp DID kill the DS.....it did.........

exer881

Yep! Just like that ol' PSP killed the DS...

Chromeo

I agree 100%.

Now if the iPhone got actual physical buttons....I'd be a little more interested to see what would happen.

To me, it just looses it's fesability as a gaming platform with no physical buttons...it's so hard to play emulators on it by just touching the screen. :(

Anubis LG

I'd get a DS, but I'm scared to know what my brain age actually is.

GeekyNerdGuy

I guess parents will pay $200-$400 for an iphone for their little ones plus pay the monthly charges that come with it. Cmon Forbes the iPhone wont kill the DS.

pdditty

Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, good one! Yeah, I don't think so.

B1663R

Well that shows what Forbes knows about the gaming community doesn't it?

fsusmithc2

@highfloydelity: No wonder I'm having this premature mid-life crisis!

GeekyNerdGuy

@Angus: It slices! It dices! It makes loads of Julienne Fries!

Ron Popeil, your next gadget awaits!

Prima facia dumbness, starting with the idea that the iPhone is a "perfect corporate phone." Goes downhill from there.

Zounds, indeed!

ps61318

@GeekyNerdGuy: 42

highfloydelity

iPhone killed the DS star.

bms

so the iphone is not only a perfect corporate phone for the business minded, but also the perfect gaming phone for those seeking entertainment? and it also is the best personal media player out there? zounds!

Angus

Star Wars Galaxy will be the end of Dark Ages of Camelot and EQ!

Lupison

I guess the guy just didn't know what the hell he was talking about. How much do you bet he doesn't actually own a DS or he just saw his kid fiddle with it and went "HA! MY IPHONE ROCKS THAT!"

IrisMR

isoSasquatch said, " Jobs doesn't "get" video games. He doesn't care."

That megalomaniac doesn't have to get it anymore. They have an SDK and an easy way to get games accessible to everyone easily, and more than likely cheaply too. The Core frameworks and OpenGL offer a many option for developers of all sorts to make a bundle very quickly on the mobile OS X platform.

Leonard Nimrod

@Leonard Nimrod: PS: By 'hinder' I mean it will take some of it's business, this does not imply 'kill'. So tired of these hyperbolic all-or-nothing headlines to increase page hits.

Leonard Nimrod

Quick note about the price issue: the iPod touch will play iPhone games and might get closer to DS range in price by year-end (8GB = $199?).

But still, this isn't happening, for two reasons:

1. Jobs doesn't "get" video games. He doesn't care. That's why gaming is always an afterthought with Apple products. If he loved games as much as he loves music, the first iPod would've been a portable gaming device, not an MP3 player.

2. The DS is made for kids and marketed to kids -- the adult users (like me) are icing on the cake for Nintendo. iPhones and even iPods are for adults -- they're slick and sexy and, yes, expensive. Until they make a cheap, chunky, rubberized, brightly-colored iPhone/iTouch that sells at Toys R Us, Apple's not taking jack from the DS.

That said, I am excited about the gaming potential of the iPhone and the SDK/App Store setup they've put in place -- at the least, it looks like it could be a great casual gaming device. With a ton of 3rd party support and a growing user base, it might just succeed in spite of Steve's apathy. (But it's still not taking down the DS.)

isoSasquatch

Eh, I wish this were true. I'm not much a fan of Nintendo.

Let's see the iPhone with an nVidia Tegra connection going on. THAT, would be rather awesome.

- PR-0927

PR-0927

Matt Buchanan's assumption is based off of a demo that was slapped together in 2 weeks by developers with no prior Obj-C experience.

Forbes as a point. People will buy an iPhone and iPod Touch for the reasons they were already buying these devices but may forgo buying a separate handheld device for playing video games if they are already offered on Apple's upcoming App Store.

The idea that Matt puts down that the demo was only 2D so it can't be as fun to play as it is on the DS is short-sided at best. The iPhone and iPod Touch's currently have a 620MHz ARM11 under-clocked at 412MHz (but this has increased as power management has increased).

For comparison, Sony PSP is a MIPS running at 333MHz and the Ninrtendo DS has an ARM7 running at 33MHz and at 67MHz.

And since it is running OS X and there is a full SDK any game designer that currently creates for OS X will not have much trouble porting to this new form-factor. Will it kill these otehr markets? Of course not. Will it hinder their sales as this is a value added device? Abslutely. Why would someone with an iPhone or iPod Touch pay an extra $150 to $200 when their current device is much powerful and has the same games for less money ready to purchase and play from the device.

Leonard Nimrod

When I am interested in reading about the next hot video game console, I pick up the latest issue of Forbes.

I retract my comments about Giz being a home to Apple fan-boys. Forbes has set a new standard for us all.

Monty

iphone will NOT kill the DS, who comes up with this shit?

redrabbit

I agree that a multipurpose device may not kill a dedicated game device, but I have to agree with Leonard Nimrod -- your argument is pointless because it depends on the notion that what EA created in 2 weeks as admo is the beginning and end of what they will ever do with Spore on the iPhone. Id on't believe there is any basis for this. I think it was pretty clear that we were seeing just the beginning.

@isoSasquatch: It's not that Jobs doesn't care about games. He didn't have the resources or position to compete with the DirectX API as, when, and after it rose to dominance. If the iPhone can prove to be a beachhead into the market, he will leverage whatever resources he can while factoring in the fact that it's already proving a beachhead into so many fronts. Can Apple turn its Imaging API based on a long stagnant "standard" 3D API into a gaming API that competes with Microsoft's PC API and other console and game dev-specific tools? Who knows, but maybe on the new platform that Apple seems to be defining.

Tim Faulkner

The iPhone will also kill the XBox.

That is all.

Kaiser-Machead

Pretty much what Leonard Nimrod said. The premise for Matt's argument is almost as flawed as the Forbes article, albeit in a different way.

OK, disclaimer, I'm an Apple fan, I have an iPhone.

With that said, I don't have any illusions that the iPhone could "kill" the DS, or even think about competing in that arena.

However, as Leonard said, people "may forgo buying a separate handheld device for playing video games if they are already offered on Apple's upcoming App Store."

Matt says:

"There's no crossover or competing audience with the DS version-it's basically just a distraction, and that's what most games on the iPhone will be."

but that's incorrect because many hundreds of thousands of people who have picked up DSs did so precisely because all they wanted was a distraction on the commuter trains in Tokyo.

Think about the biggest seller on the DS "Brain Age" and the demographic that bought the DS just to play that game. Did that have to be played on a DS? Absolutely not. If iPhone owners could buy the same game for the iPhone for the same price, they would not go out and buy a DS. It'll be a waste of money and pocket real estate, when you're already carrying around the iPhone constantly.

So, there's no way iPhone could steal hardcore gamers (especially the kids) from Nintendo, but, it can take away potential Nintendo customers who are merely lite-gamers, which, again, comprise a huge portion of the millions of DS users today.

Dearhaw

@GeekyNerdGuy: Good

Kaiser-Machead

@Tim Faulkner: Like I said, I'm excited to see where 3rd parties take the iPhone as a game platform, but the reason Nintendo dominates this space is that (like Apple does elsewhere), they develop the software and hardware in concert -- the hardware serves the software's needs. They make great games, then they design simple, relatively inexpensive devices to play them on. So handing developers a finished, multipurpose device and saying, "Here's what it does, write games for that, and no, you can't have buttons" is kind of backwards from what has proven successful in the games industry. Not that great games won't come out of it, but it's not a cohesive strategy for establishing a new entrant in the portable gaming market.

Here's a clumsy analogy: Apple saw the potential of podcasting and built it into the iTunes Store, but they haven't taken a very active role in content creation, nor have they put much, if any, marketing money behind it. As a result, podcasting remains a small niche and a footnote to the iPod/iPhone/Apple TV's functionality, when some more support could help mainstream it as a medium (especially as production get cheaper and bandwidth increases to allow more HD podcast delivery). At least there's that $100 million venture cap fund for iPhone apps, but something tells me the bulk of that money won't be going to game developers.

isoSasquatch

The iPhone also killed a hobo in the back alleys of downtown Houston last night.

GeekyNerdGuy

Damn! Can I have a bit of what this guy is sniffing?

takashimike 2.0

@isoSasquatch: The lack of a D-pad and other buttons can be a hinderance but I think there is nothing that presents a 3rd party from creating an external control that plugs into the 30-pin connector. It could even go over the back of the device and around to the top end for 2 hand controlling and offer a rumble and/or additional battery built in while also acting like a protective case.

- - - - -

If Apple offers a true GPS chip int eh next iPhone the same thing could happen with people who think that the iPhone as a GPS receiver is "good enough" when having to consider a separate device for several hundred dollars. Personally, I think Apple is too cheap and will want to offer true GPS in a year or so to get people to upgrade again.

Leonard Nimrod

@SFDJ: But you are forgetting the iPod Touch which doesn't have a monthly fee tied to it, While it's double the price, it also replaces a standalone PMP and/or MID.

If you consider the value added of having the App Store, considerable more RAM and faster CPU and Web Browsing into one device it may not seem that far fetched if developers bring the games to the platform. Which I don't it is considering that half the dirty apps demoed were games. But we shall see.

Leonard Nimrod

Opps... it's Forbes... not Times.... I'll now have to call and get my subscription back....

SFDJ

It's like comparing an Apple to an Orange...these 2 devices have entirely different customer base. No parents with a right mind would buy their kids an iPhone for gaming purposes.... it's way too expensive and not to forget the $60 a month fee for AT&T.... almost all the kids I know have a DS.... and not even 1 of their parents have an iPhone yet... the Times piece sounds like an "anything to promote iPhone" piece to me, tey again..... Whoever the author is really needs to be fired.... What an idiot?!

SFDJ

Laughable. But it's Forbes... they don't know crap about games.

Bokusatsu_Tenshi

Load of crap. Seriously.

absolofdoom

Giz, you forget that what you saw from EA was only from 2 weeks of development. I think that the version of spore they bring to the iPhone will be a lot more featured. I do think that the iPhone has the potential to kill the DS, seeing the crappy games that have been coming out for silly amounts of money.

teexcue

I'm not buying one until it can play Crysis at the highest resolution and framerate.

robinandtami

@teexcue: It wasn't 2 weeks of development. It was 2 weeks of porting the completed highend version of the mobile phone game onto the iPhone SDK, Trust me I know. The mobile version stated development over a year ago. The best part is, they only would show one level and a pre-rendered cutscene, because I think thats all they got working.
@Tim Faulkner: That is all they are doing with that game. They are just adding more effects and tilt controls.

Also, can I make a prediction that the phone game will get higher scores than the DS game. At least visually. I'm calling that right now.

wowcat

Expecting a cell phone to outdo a video game system makes about as much sense as expecting a laptop to outdo a flash light. Most 8 year olds don't have iPhones, and the ones that do should be shot for being spoiled. Most 8 year olds DO have DSes, because that just makes sense.

videoCWK

@wowcat: I'll trust you. I'm just excited to see how things develop. I know the iPhone can't handle too much and the controls are limited. But, yeah, I also expect some iPhone games to score better than other mobile versions of apps. So I'm excited to see those possibilities and when it starts rubbing up against its limitations. All in all, I think the Forbes artice is sily, but the thesis is legit. Developers are excited for the iPhone. The iPhone is going to get much more powerful and faster than Nintendo mobile devices (while not being tailored for games exclusively). The iPhone and a whoe wave of imitators aren't going away. Ultimately, the two will collide. 2 years, 3 years, 6? I don't know.

Again, it brings me back to 2002-2006 when iPod detractors liked to always insist that cellphones would eat its lunch. Well, now Apple has a cellphone and it might start eating GPS receivers' and mobile gameplayers' lunches before these other companies/markets can adequately adapt to what Apple has brought to the cellphone market. (Again, I'm thinking over the next many years, several upgrade cycles.)

Either way it will be interesting. Lots of people are excited. But patience, questioning, and challenging the hype are needed... by the buttload.

Tim Faulkner

Fair enough. I'll trade my DS for an iPhone, any takers?

Channing

iphones gaming suck! I play bad dudes using an nes emulation for the iphones, the touch screen work like crap. The only thing the touch screen good for is squatting the ants crawling around during screen saver mode. I can't even press a direction without touching the other direction first while playing the games. I don't know why they are comparing it to the ds and psp.

CaesarFuries

@pdditty: There's also the iPod Touch that many fail to realize which doesn't come with monthly fees. Its the same as the iPhone, but without the phone. Thus saving loads of money.

Zc456

@fsusmith: That just shows what Forbes knows about *anything* -- their lists and things of those nature are almost always as ridiculous as this. It's like asking a fashion designer to do a report about professional basketball.

rcast1986

I think the author of the article on gizmodo does underestimate the power of the iPhone and the relatively weak power of the DS. It's really not comparable specification-wise and the fact that the iPhone can EASILY run 3D applications says a whole lot about where in practice the iPhone could go. I think it's not a crazy thought at all that it might compete with the DS at some point, but considering the huge amount of games the DS already has and the fact that it's pretty much a rock-solid established player in console-land now, I don't see the iPhone as a huge immediate threat so much.

DenleyAegialeia