Business

NINTENDO AND APPLE PLATFORMS ARE GAMING EACH OTHER

Call it the clash of the titans.

Two of the hottest tech companies – Nintendo and Apple – appeared headed for a showdown after Nintendo moved to patent its tilt sensitivity on its best-selling portable system, Nintendo DS – essentially to turn it into mobile Nintendo Wii.

That sounds a lot like the motion-based accelerometer in this year’s other media darling, the iPhone.

Meanwhile, Apple has been secretly plotting its foray into portable video games for months, looking to add games to its hot iPhone, according to various on- and off-the-record sources.

“I was told that a major game developer was seeded with iPhone [technology] quite some time ago,” says AppleInsider.com Editor-In-Chief Kasper Jade.

Apple is expected to make a gaming announcement soon, “by Macworld in January at the latest,” says Engadget.com Editorial Director Peter Rojas.

If so, that would put the two tech titans in direct competition.

However, the trail of Apple’s video game agenda is surprisingly long. Jade notes that Apple TV, the device released last spring that connects the iPod to televisions, has architecture expressly created for video games.

Apple has already released a few classic arcade games on the iPod, but having Pac-Man on the music player was likely just extended market research. Experts say the iPhone has much more potential.

“If people could get over the lack of real buttons, the fact that the screen is multi-touch could be ideal for light gaming,” says technology expert Seth Porges. Trivia and puzzle games would also be likely iPhone genres.

Nintendo, establishing its name with Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong and other hearty games, has been aggressively courting the casual market, too. Its Brain Age titles are among the top 10 Nintendo DS games, selling more than 17 million copies. No. 1 is last year’s canine simulation Nintendogs, which sold almost 15 million copies.

Nintendo’s new patent will likely bring about a modified Nintendo DS as opposed to an entire new system, especially since the DS has sold 26 million units worldwide. “It is far more likely that they will release a motion-sensitive version of the current DS so that it can interface with the Wii [home system] in creative ways,” Porges says.