iPhone not encroaching on DS

There’s more than enough evidence to suggest that Apple can rightly lay claim to be the fourth platform holder of the modern video games market – but Nintendo has dismissed the idea that Apple’s gain is its loss.

There’s been no data to suggest an encroachment on our business,” Nintendo’s American president Reggie Fils-Aime told Forbes.

The iPhone has been out on the marketplace for just a couple of years. In the last two years we’ve set two records on our DS business, last year selling over 11.2m units. So there’s been no evidence that we’ve lost any business to that competitor.”

Reggie did concede, however, that Apple’s rise has at least won it the honour of being named a true competitor in the sector.

On the other hand, we recognise that consumers have a limited amount of entertainment time, and anything that takes entertainment time away from the Nintendo DS, DSi and Wii is a competitor. And so from that standpoint, we need to build experiences that are compelling and sticky, and that consumers can get excited about. That’s our challenge.”