Apple Snags Former Xbox Exec

nandemoari sends along word that Apple has picked up Richard Teversham, a senior Executive from Microsoft's European Xbox operations, ending his 15 years of service to Redmond. Some press accounts assume that Teversham's role may lie in beefing up the games scene on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Forbes goes farther, opining that Apple "appears to be preparing an all-out assault on the handheld gaming market." Other reporting associates the hire with Apple's recent buildout of chip-design expertise.

Comments

Meh

[Anenome]

Apple would be dumb to take on Nintendo in the handheld market.

A. It's been tried.
Everyone up to and including Sony has tried and failed. No one has ever taken the crown from N in portable gaming. And Sony gave it everything they had.

B. It's not possible without dedicated hardware.
So the Iphone can play games. Gee great. It has a nice screen. So did the PSP. But it doesn't have dedicated gaming inputs like the PSP had, and the PSP still failed. I remember people saying the PSP would be the one to finally take the crown, how wrong they were. The DS blew everything out of the water once again.

C. Only one screen.
When Apple starts shipping Iphones with two screens it might have a chance of competing with the DS, until then I think not.

Are developers going to create games for Iphone with the same scope of the best and richest of DS games? No. Because the market for Iphone apps is muddled. People may be buying games for the Iphone, but they sure as hell aren't paying DS-game prices for those games. They're paying a few bucks. And those games reflect it, they are curiosities-- the portable equivalent of time wasters, generally. Will Square ever release an RPG for the Iphone, I seriously doubt it. Will parent buy an Ipohone for their kid to game with? Hell no. Lacking a clam-shell alone is a massive strike on that possibility.