Apple presence felt at Tokyo Game Show
The Tokyo Game Show has had its share of new buzz, but Apple and their recent emphasis on iPhone and Touch games were a pervasive shadow on the mood of the show and its participants.
Apple created a lot of buzz of its own at its recent music and iPod event in San Francisco, where much of the marketing time spent by Steve Jobs and company was about games: how great the iPod Touch was as a portable games platform, how many game apps filled the Apple App Store, and how many high-profile game developers (and lesser known developers) were making a killing developing for the Apple mobile platforms.
There followed a period during which the makers of game consoles and other gaming hardware fought back, doing their best to make it clear that the Apple mobile devices were not as marvelous as Apple made them out to be. They were quick to point out, as were the fans of old-line gaming platforms, that Apple’s hardware and games from the App Store did not hold a candle the experience provided by the stand-alone game consoles.
Still, it was clear in Tokyo that representatives of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft were feeling the pressure from the Apple mobile devices, according to a New York Times story. The big question seemed to be how the Wii, Playstation, et al could continue to compete with the Apple mobile devices and their ability to do so many things other than play games, especially at prices often lower than the standalone consoles, with games that are usually either cheap or free.
Speaking primarily of the iPhone, Haruhiro Tsujimoto, chief executive of major game maker Capcom, said, “In the past year, the gaming lifestyle has been transformed. Cellphones have become a recognized gaming device.” It is clear that the executives of the mainstream gaming industry are feeling the heat from Apple. Another, Kazumi Kitaue, chief executive at game maker Konami Digital Entertainment, said, “As a platform, the cellphone has the biggest potential, because everybody owns one.”
The smartphone, and especially the iPhone along with the very similar iPod Touch, may well represent an entirely new direction in the gaming industry. As the capabilities of smartphones continue to increase, and as they become more able to run complex gaming software, it is possible that the industry will see a trend towards these multi-purpose devices and away from stand-alone game consoles. There will still be room for both, but it is easy to see that smartphones like the iPhone and media players like the iPod Touch could lure significant revenue away from the old-line games manufacturers.
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