In yesterday’s Apple media event entitled “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” Apple made it clear where they see a bit part of the iPod’s future: games.
The Cupertino-based manufacturer of the iPod Touch and iPhone spent 15 minutes out of the hour-long event discussing the gaming market, even taking a moment to swipe at Nintendo and Sony in the portable gaming space.
Amongst Apple’s complaints about the traditional video game console makers: no multi-touch screen, the price of those games are far too high, there is no app store and there is no iPod.
Unfortunately for Apple, not all of that is 100 percent true. The Nintendo DS doesn’t have a multi-touch user interface, just a touchscreen which is controlled with single taps and drags of a stylus, but the Nintendo DSi has a DSi Shop through which small games are purchased and downloaded.
The new Sony PSPgo, which launches on October 1, also has the PlayStation Store, with a new suite of low-cost games coming out soon called Minis as a direct response to Apple’s app store. Lastly, both systems can play music files through memory sticks or SD cards.
Still, the attention Apple paid to gaming in yesterday’s event shows they re not here to play — they re here to win. Apple touted its over 21K games and entertainment apps and a revival of the iPod Touch marketing campaign that calls it the funnest iPod ever. It’s going to be pretty tough to compete with messaging like this:
