iPhone gaming has got handheld giants Sony and Nintendo “freaking out”, according to the founder of games publisher EA (Electronic Arts), Trip Hawkins. Read on to find out why the touchscreen could be taking it to the DSi and the PSP.
Nintendo has repeatedly stressed it doesn’t see iPhone gaming as a threat, but that’s not how one industry leader sees it. Trip Hawkins, the original founder of EA, reckons iPhone gaming “is freaking out Sony and Nintendo.”
Trip should know. Since leaving EA, he’s set up Digital Chocolate, a game development studio that’s bagged the iPhone and iPod touch App Store Number 1 download spot 4 times this year alone.
“It’s by far our most effective platform. We make as much money with these games on one device [the iPhone] as we do putting a game on 100 different cell phone platforms,” he told VentureBeat.
And that’s just the beginning: the gaming popularity of the iPhone can only go up: “Apple has sold 30 million units so far and it has created tremendous awareness. It has taken ground all over the world. But it has only penetrated one half of one percent of its total market,” he added.
If Hawkins sees his iPhone success continue, Nintendo may well need to step it up a gear and get that phone service up and running on the DSi, while that rumoured Sony PSP phone couldn’t do any harm.
Out TBC | £TBC | Apple (Via VentureBeat) (iPhone available at Apple)
