Nintendo Not Worried About iPhone Games

The arrival of the Apple iPhone shook the wireless business in ways that can still be seen rippling out more than a year since the original product’s introduction. With the launch of the iPhone 3G in more worldwide markets at lower prices, coupled with the new App Store, the iPhone has the potential to threaten other platforms.

Games are the most popular items on the App Store at the current moment, with seven of the top ten paid Apps, and five of the top ten free Apps are games. In fact, games are the top downloads at the time of publication – Super Monkey Ball is the top Paid App and Labyrinth Lite Edition tops the Free selection.

Clearly, iPhone users are also greatly interested in using their little handheld devices for games – something that could worry traditional game companies such as Nintendo.

Nintendo has always had a commanding lead on the portable gaming market, and the company’s DS is the current top selling handheld. But even with the rise of the iPhone with its touch screen capabilities of the DS and the motion sensing abilities of the Wii, Nintendo says that it isn’t worried about Apple encroaching on its territory.

Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s global president and CEO, admits that he has an iPhone and likes it. “I use the iPhone myself,” he said to Forbes. “I know that it’s an attractive product.”

Iwata does not, however, see Apple’s wonder-product taking away from Nintendo’s business. “When I look carefully at the iPhone’s users vs. the users of our Nintendo DS, I understand there are some overlaps. And if you ask ’Is the overlap too big ?,’ my answer is no, not so much,” he added.

Despite brisk sales of the iPhone 3G, the games company from Kyoto presently has little reason to fear from the computer company from Cupertino. The Nintendo DS has sold more than 70 million units worldwide — a number that Apple will find hard to catch even with the iPhone and iPod Touch combined.