[QUOTE="gameofthering"]
Handhelds? no :P
PC? Probably not.
Mckenna1845
apple will never seriously threaten the windows userbase, until they allow other companies to install mac os on pc. aslong as the only legal way to get apple os is to pay 1000 or so for a mac then microsoft has nothing to worry about.
as for handhelds ipod and iphone have completely different markets so you can't compare sales vs sales directly. although if apple gets some serious gaming talent on board, and start some 1st party developers up, then it might be interesting. but hardware sales will never count until a dedicated handheld is released and not a phone or mp3 player with the ability to run apps as it currently is.
If it were just about Apple releasing another hand held games console I really wouldn't be wasting time on threads like this.
People don't seem to quite understand that it's the very fact that the iPhone is a phone (a device that in this day and age is considered almost essential and that almost everyone in the civilized world has), that is also slowly becoming a serious games machine too, that is the biggest threat and trump card against the other gaming companies.
Pretty much everyone carries a phone these days and as devices like the iPhone become these serious games devices very soon there won't be much of an incentive for the average person to bother carrying around an additional dedicated games console at all, and especially when they can just get their gaming fix on this single device they always have with them (and almost every other fix it seems too such as movies, music, books, games, Apps, phone etc etc etc).That's what Nintendo, Sony and even Microsoft have to worry about because Apple is uniquely positioned to get their device into more people's hands than anyone else and if that device just happens to be a portable games console to boot then most of those same people aren't going to bother with other games devices just for the sake of it.
I think the main point I am getting at is that as more people buy an iPhone or iPad, and see just how good they are as games devices too (and for most people trust me they are going to be perfectly happy with their games functionality), less and less people are going to go out and buy another expensive and separate dedicated games console. That has to mean at some point that Apple's products are going to be a direct threat to the sales of any products that compete in the same functionality, and that includes moves and music and books too as well as games.
This is really the first time there's even been a phone that we can take seriously as a games device, from both a hardware and software/service perspective, and that's a major difference between now and in the past when some slightly ignorant people claimed phones were going to replace hand held games consoles.
With devices like the iPhone and iPad Apple has a near perfect combination of hardware, software and services, unlike nearly every single other company out there imo, and all the pieces are in place to make Apple's domination in the games space a very likely reality in the not too distant future.
Apple is a huge threat to any company currently involved in gaming with their iPhone and iPad hardware and software/service solutions (and certainly those involved in portable gaming for sure).
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