Iwata unimpressed by iPad and 3D gaming

ipadbeef "It was a bigger iPod Touch," quoth Nintendo president Satoru Iwata on Apple’s iPad. He added that there were “no surprises” for him.

Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, is toting their new hardware as the “future of gaming”. It’s bigger than the iPod Touch, it is faster, and it… it… it’s made by Apple and it’s shiny.

I have to side with Iwata on this one (shocked, aren’t you?). The iPad made no significant leaps from the iPod Touch, and I frankly can’t see where all of it’s hype is coming from. Sure, it is cool and shiny and stuff, and I’d love it if I could get one for free… But, I see no real incentive to upgrade from my iPod.

The hype isn’t what bothers me though, but rather that fact that the iPad is put forth as serious competition to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. Games on the all-touch screen is fun and all, but it gets old. It is great for casual gaming (yes, we “core” gamers like to kick back every now and then), but I just don’t think it will work for deeper games for various reasons (cheap competition on the App Store being one of them).

Anyway, enough of my opinions on the iPad – this isn’t Macworld. Iwata also commented on 3D video-gaming, which he does not expect to catch on.

"I have doubts whether people will be wearing glasses to play games at home. How is that going to look to other people?"

This is both good and bad judgment in my opinion. 3D isn’t cheap to work with, and it murders the eyes over time. But, Sony is pouring their assets into 3D TVs, and we can rest assured that the PS4 will make use of this technology. No-glasses 3D television sets are already on the market for roughly the price of a used car.

This kind of set may very well become the standard of the industry within a decade, and I have to admit that gaming would be just plain awesome in 3D.

Via MercuryNews.com

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  • Ellie

    Too bad there isn’t a “biased” category. This entry shouldn’t even exist. The author makes it sound like Apple isn’t already a serious compettitor. The reality is more people own an iPod touch than either DS or PSP. So that statement alone, destroys the author’s argument and makes him look like he has no idea what he’s talking about, simply enraged that someone else is competing with his favorite gaming company.

    What I’d like to know is why the author bothers getting upset over competition? Competition FORCES the other contenders to try and outdo the other competetors, making for a better end product for the consumer.

    That is all.

  • http://forums.wiinintendo.net/ SirVenom

    I made clear in the article that I do own an iPod Touch.

    I have put at least $50 into games on the iPod Touch, I own a PS1, two PS2 units (I had to upgrade for the Ethernet port), I borrow my brother-in-law’s PS3 frequently, I enjoy the 360, and I play my PSP quite often. I am far from biased.

    Come to think of it… how the heck did I afford all of that? 0_o

    Anyway, back to my point. I never said that I am against competition – in fact, if you see my posts elsewhere, you will see that I praise competition. Competition is why I have high hopes for Natal, and I held back a laugh when Iwata said that if “there were no competing companies” he could tell us what they were working on. With no competing companies, they wouldn’t be working at all.

    My point in the article was that Apple has disappointed me by being lazy. They could have made some great leaps with this generation, like they did with the iPod Touch… but instead, they just blow it up to a few times the original size and present it as the best thing since sliced bread.

    I like Apple – I have had intentions to upgrade to a Macbook for a long time, and I actually do have an old Mac packed away right now (and wish that I knew just where it was). I know that they made computers what they are today, even if Microsoft happens to market them better. I KNOW that they have a lot of creative power. And yet, they give us iPod Touch XL, and present it as the “future of gaming”.

    I play games on my iPod a lot – I have six pages of them, in fact. But the truth is, a lot of them are low quality. The ones that are very good are hindered by several factors – no physical buttons, for one thing, cheap (more affordable) competition on the App Store for another, and other things that will only take too much time to bring up.

    My point was that I wish they would have put some serious effort into this upgrade. I am all for competition, and I can not tell you how very deeply offended I am that you should say otherwise, but the iPad puts forward no serious improvement on the iPod Touch. The iPod Touch has potential to be, and may very well already have been, a game-changer. The iPad does not.

    So, yeah, this response is a bit long. I had to type until I felt I had addressed every point. Forgive me if I am a bit too aggressive – I didn’t bother to reread this comment.

  • kevin

    just what everybody said about the dsi xl, and the ipad.

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