Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime has just revealed in an interview with Forbes that his company views the competition a bit differently and that, at the moment, Apple is a bigger threat to the Japanese company than Microsoft.
Nintendo is still dominating the gaming business, with the Wii still achieving impressive sales in front of other consoles like Microsoft's Xbox 360 or Sony's PlayStation 3.
On the handheld side, the Nintendo DS, in
its multiple iterations, is still dominating its closest rival, Sony's PlayStation Portable, but is facing opposition from Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices that are attracting quite a lot of people thanks to the games found in the App Store and the new
Game Center service.
According to Fils-Aime, Nintendo doesn't view the competition in the same way, saying that his company is in a different league.
"I compete with Zynga, I compete with surfing the net, I compete with the newspaper," he said.
Still, when asked if Apple poses a more significant threat than Microsoft, for example, the Nintendo executive agreed.
"Do I think that in the near term they can hurt us more than Microsoft? Absolutely," said Fils-Aime.
Still, the executive isn't worried, as Fils-Aime calls the experience on Apple devices to be a casual one, while the DS offers a more serious experience, and he admits that while he played a bit of Angry Birds, he's put around 150 hours into Dragon Quest on his Nintendo DS.
Even if Nintendo believes this, more and more third party developers and publishers are choosing to get their titles on the iPhone/iPod Touch, and even on the Android mobile operating system, instead of just on the Nintendo DS or on the PSP.
Apple is on a high ascending trend in terms of sales of iPhones and the rest of its portable devices, and even though it doesn't have the gaming experience of Nintendo, it is still supporting the platform through the App Store.
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