Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Apple to Sony, Nintendo: Game Over, Man
“It’s clear that the quality of iPhone games is eclipsing its console counterparts, and that’s even more acute when you compare it against the prior generation.” That’s what ngmoco co-founder and Electronic Arts alum Neil Young said of Apple’s iconic handset at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier this year, and it’s worth reflecting on a bit in light of a new report from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi that claims the iPhone OS will soon create pricing and customer migration pressure for traditional gaming platforms.
When Steve Jobs described the iPhone at D5 as “the best iPod we’ve ever made,” he set the bar high for future iterations of the iconic device. Now, in the run-up to tomorrow’s invitation-only Apple event, the question is: Will Apple reach the bar? And with what? The answer, if the latest rumors prove true, depends on your feelings about iPods with cameras.
Microsoft COO Kevin Turner must be so disappointed. Remarking on the company’s “PC Hunter” ad campaign last week, Turner said he’d been ebullient when attorneys for Apple called to complain. But now the company has quietly modified the ad in question to address Apple’s complaints.
If the netbook market is a race to the bottom, then Sony is bringing up the rear. Not a year after Sony execs disparaged netbooks as undeserving of its premium brand attention, the company announced its token entry into the market: the Vaio W. 
According to some lines of code secreted away within webOS, Palm has at least one more handset in the pipeline–the so-called Eos (codename: Pixie). And while no one seems to know when it will arrive at market, there’s speculation today that we’ll see it by November, right in time for the winter holidays.
If Apple is indeed preparing to offer the iPhone 3G in China in partnership with China Unicom, its sales prospects are looking pretty damn good. Bank of America analyst Scott Craig believes the company could claim as much as a fifth of the smartphone market in China when it launches the device there–and in relatively short order. 
This year will see one of the worst slumps in the PC industry ever. But as grim as things may get, they will perhaps not be so bad for Apple. According to TBR analyst Ezra Gottheil, the company has so far avoided the “permanent and structural” collapse of overall average selling prices for PCs and the related decline in revenue.
