Ngmoco CEO says Apple “is defeating the Nintendo hardware machine”, software prices an issue, more
Ngmoco CEO Neil Young gave a simple response when asked if he considers Nintendo to be a competitor. He said, “No … Well… no.”
Young’s company has been publishing iOS and Android titles for several years now. It’s these types of releases that are considered to be a threat to the dedicated handheld gaming business.
Young believes that the success of smartphones will impact the market that dedicated handhelds currently maintain:
“I think that Apple has done a number on Sony, and Apple and Android are now doing a number on Nintendo. …What they’re really doing is defeating the Nintendo hardware machine.”
Young seems to be more concerned about competing with Nintendo’s software rather than its hardware.
He noted:
“…and so in that regard maybe we’re competitive, but man, they’ve got some killer franchises. You wouldn’t want to go up against Zelda and Mario and Pokemon and Kirby every day of the week.”
Young also feels that the price point of handheld software is one issue Nintendo faces:
“(In) the ecosystem that they’ve created, it’s just really difficult to justify spending $30 on a game that is anything other than a Mario, a Zelda, a Pokemon. I think that ultimately their ecosystem starts to fall apart.”
But as far as first-party IPs go, Young is “actually quite happy for them to stay in their little custom handheld gaming space. I think it’s very difficult to imagine them breaking away from that.”
