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Fils-Aime: Nintendo Offers 'Full Meal' To iPhone's 'Small Chunks'
by Chris Remo
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November 13, 2009
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As an entertainment company, Nintendo competes with Apple's iPhone and its ever-growing suite of applications. But Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime says Nintendo's deep game offerings put the company in a favorable position against the App Store's more bite-sized offerings.
"Consumers have only a limited amount of time for entertainment, so we compete with Apple," Fils-Aime said in a televised CNBC interview today. "We compete with your program [on CNBC]; we compete with books and magazines; we compete with everything people do for entertainment. From that standpoint, we're battling it out minute by minute."
When anchor Maria Bartiromo pointed out the vast number of available iPhone apps relative to the amount of software available for Wii and Nintendo DS, Fils-Aime stressed the depth available on Nintendo platforms.
This is a potentially notable angle, given Nintendo's success in recent years as marketing its platforms as less time-consuming, more accessible alternatives to the more hardcore-slanted systems.
"While they have a lot of these applications, they're very small chunks of entertainment," Fils-Aime said. "What we do is, we provide a full meal in terms of a game you could play for hours on end -- very deep very enriching -- and that's why our handheld business has been doing so well all year long."
As for competing with Microsoft and Sony, Fils-Aime said the key is to "continually innovate," particularly with games for a wider audience. Such games "come from everyday life," he said, referencing oft-told stories about Shigeru Miyamoto's daily routine influencing his design: "When he gets a new pet, he creates a game like Nintendogs. When he gets concerned about his weight, he creates a game like Wii Fit."
"It really comes from everyday life," Fils-Aime concluded, "and I think that's what makes our games so broadly appealing."
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If the DS is having trouble competing with the iPhone, then Nintendo should come out with a handheld gaming system with phone functionalities, while the iPhone continues to be a phone with gaming functionalities. If the DSi Speak Channel was flexible enough to make all kinds of phone calls and text messages, then the iPhone would have some serious competition.
In the meantime, the DS seems to be doing just fine. If Reggie is really that ambitious about competing with the iPhone and all other forms of entertainment, then he needs to give us a reason why we should never leave home without the DS.
The DS serves gamers that are willing to buy a dedicated video game machine. Its controls are much more versatile and advanced. Games for the DS are easier to promote and differentiate due to the limiting factors of physical media, Nintendo's own control of their digital distribution, and the industry in place to facilitate such promotion. Games do get lost in the shuffle, but less do, and this should make larger development investments more attractive on the DS.
The iPhone serves gamers that don't really need all that much gaming in their lives. While there are exceptions, most of iPhone games are small, cheap to make, and relatively unknown. This ocean of apps looks impressive on a PowerPoint presentation, but it probably won't inspire too many big investments for fear of getting lost in that sea. Controls are not as good. Without buttons, many types of games become slow and imprecise to control. This is not a problem to a hipster who only wants to play solitare or a simple racer on their trip to work, but for a good portion of more complex games, it won't fly.
Add to that the fact that Nintendo will still kill the iPod/iPhone in the pre-teen demographic and still have Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon, and Nintendo isn't looking bad at all.
However, Nintendo stated right along that it did want the audience that the iPhone is wooing. I don't see them succeeding at that in the portable market without a convergent device, and that is something they have historically avoided. Also, the iPhone ocean is not going to be blue. Nintendo will have to find a way to differentiate their product. If they do ever want that iPhone market, I think it would be wise to ally with Google, but a Google and Nintendo branded device would be an unusual move for Nintendo.
That said, Nintendo should be worried: one key element where the App Store is clearly superior is price: the majority of games are free or under three dollars. Nintendo can't compete with that, especially if Apple do decide to rework the App Store to improve it's search/recommendation capabilities.
I only want one electric device on me. Right now I've got a phone and an iTouch [I sold my DS Lite, no need with an iTouch]. If iPhone ever comes to Verizon I'll upgrade immediately. Until then I'm content.