Apple to Compete in Handheld Race?

Nintendo has seen little competition in the handheld race since it started its dominance with the Game Boy over a decade ago. The only challengers they saw in the 90s were swept aside. The only device to pose a real threat was the Game Gear which, after initially gaining PSP-level sales, withered and died. In December of 2004, Sony‘s entry became the biggest threat Nintendo had ever received in the handheld world. Now, rumours are pointing to Apple making an entry as well. That’s right, Apple. Apple and Nintendo were two companies that PSP was already competing with. The Video and Music capabilities were to combat the iPod while the gaming capabilities were there to do away with the DS. Now, Apple wants a share of all three of the PSP’s selling points.

How did this rumour come about? An EGM article.

No, I’m kidding =) That was an April Fool’s joke and if you thought so far that I was referring to that, I feel almost insulted! The rumours are stemming from a report that a software engineer turned down a job offer from a recruiter because he was being “heavily recruited by Apple.” The recruiter then told GameSpot about this.

So what’s this got to do with things? Well, according to the recruitee, Mike Lampell is the man who’s heading up the group and he’s looking for “C/C++ coders with a ‘gaming background.Â’” For those wondering, Lampell was a technical director at LucasArts on many large name projects.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the only two companies who aren’t currently in the game industry and who’d definitely do well in it are Apple and Google. Now it looks like Apple is going to go for a piece of the pie. It’s not too unthinkable, is it?

Nintendo has seen little competition in the handheld race since it started its dominance with the Game Boy over a decade ago. The only challengers they saw in the 90s were swept aside. The only device to pose a real threat was the Game Gear which, after initially gaining PSP-level sales, withered and died. In December of 2004, Sony‘s entry became the biggest threat Nintendo had ever received in the handheld world. Now, rumours are pointing to Apple making an entry as well. That’s right, Apple. Apple and Nintendo were two companies that PSP was already competing with. The Video and Music capabilities were to combat the iPod while the gaming capabilities were there to do away with the DS. Now, Apple wants a share of all three of the PSP’s selling points.

How did this rumour come about? An EGM article.

No, I’m kidding =) That was an April Fool’s joke and if you thought so far that I was referring to that, I feel almost insulted! The rumours are stemming from a report that a software engineer turned down a job offer from a recruiter because he was being “heavily recruited by Apple.” The recruiter then told GameSpot about this.

So what’s this got to do with things? Well, according to the recruitee, Mike Lampell is the man who’s heading up the group and he’s looking for “C/C++ coders with a ‘gaming background.Â’” For those wondering, Lampell was a technical director at LucasArts on many large name projects.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, the only two companies who aren’t currently in the game industry and who’d definitely do well in it are Apple and Google. Now it looks like Apple is going to go for a piece of the pie. It’s not too unthinkable, is it?