Apple Dominates Tokyo Game Show, And The Company Isn’t Even Attending

Leander Kahney ()

At the Tokyo Game Show, the booth babes try to keep people's minds off Apple.

At the Tokyo Game Show, the booth babes try to keep people's minds off Apple. Pic by GodOfSpeed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28537954@N04/3953230803/

At the giant Tokyo Game Show, everyone’s freaking out about Apple, the New York Times reports.

Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are more worried about Apple and it’s new iPhone/iPod platform than the worst recession in decades, the Times says.

Apple’s recent foray into video games — with the iPhone, the iPod Touch and its ever-expanding online App Store — is causing as much hand-wringing among old industry players as the global economic slump, which threatens to take the steam out of year-end shopping for the second consecutive year.

The industry sees a big shift to casual gaming on cellphones and other handhelds, rather than expensive, overpowered consoles. Consumers are buying $0.99c games, rather than dropping $50 on big, blockbuster titles with multimillion dollar budgets and massive development teams. Of the 758 games debuted at the show, 168 are for cellphone platforms, the most ever.

Some game developers say Apple’s App Store is the biggest recent breakthrough in gaming, and the industry is better off trying to find new business models rather than new consoles.

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“We are going to move away from a market where it’s the hardware that fights against each other,” one developer said during a presentation. “We are going to be moving to an era when different software stores fight against each other.”

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, iPhone, iPhone Apps, iPod Touch, News |

  • McDevy

    Lol at the quality of this story.

  • Allan

    “Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are more worried about Apple and it’s new iPhone/iPod platform than the worst recession in decades, the Times says.”

    Hate to be a grammar Nazi, but “it’s” means “it is.” Seen this a lot lately.

  • Marc

    Yea Ok! I buy games for my iphone but it will never replace my 360 or PS3. I dont care what analyst say.

  • Jacob Varghese

    @Marc

    no one is saying it will compete with a Xbox or PS3. It’s going after PSP and Nintendo DS casual gamers not serious gamers.

    If You are just a casual gamer why would you want a portable device that only does one thing? Serious gamers need a device that specializes and they won’t consider a touch or iPhone just yet.
    But wait till apple comes out with next gen chip and graphics on these devices and snap-on gamepad.

  • Rumpy

    Is this story a joke? Just because Apple fanatics will by any trash game/app that Jobs peddles doesn’t mean a thing. Gaming industry execs caught wringing their hands over this tripe pulled their degrees from a cereal box.

    I get what I deserve for reading an article on Cult of Mac. At least Windows users, for all the many faults of the OS and parent company, have more than a passing relationship with reality.

  • James

    I’m a mac fanboy… but… seriously? TGS and everyone’s scared of the iPhone? Maybe you guys should, you know… send someone next year so embarrassing articles like this don’t happen.

  • Dr.Evil

    Rumpy, you don’t get do you. Right now the app store on iTunes is driving sales of games on the iPhone iPod touch platform. Tomorow it could be driving sales of games on a tablet, a mac or even an Apple tv game console. That’s what’s got Sony/Nintendo scared silly.

  • Church of Apple

    It’s about consolidation these days: music + TV + movies + games. Each player is fighting hard but still not a game changer, imho.

    Apple doesn’t have console-level gaming, Xbox has Netflix but no blu-ray, PS3 has blu-ray but no subscription media service and their a la carte model can’t compete with iTunes. Hulu could be a big player if they grew a pair and let its content be viewable on consoles.

    Right now I’ll have to settle for Pandora and Sling.com on my PS3 and Netflix mailers for my hi-def movies. It’s not prefect, but it works pretty well. If one of these guys can fit all these pieces together seamlessly it would be a miracle.

  • CaryMG

    @Rumpy
    Steve Jobs is not a junk peddler !!11!!1!
    He peddles wares of exqisite quality.
    Peddle quality — that’s what HE does.
    Peddle, peddle, peddle ….
    I like saying “peddle”.