Vi var ikke de eneste til at bemærke den helt tydelige negative tone i Nintendo-chef Satoru Iwatas tale på den netop overståede GDC 2011 messe. Undertegnede har længe ment, at de traditionelle, især japanske, spil og hardware-producenter får det enddog meget svært det næste årti. Springer du i dag forbi VG247 kan du læse en ganske rammende artikel af deres chefredaktør og stifter, Patrick Garratt, hvor han mere end revser Nintendo. Iwatas tale var lidt af en bredside imod hvad han kaldte for “spilforringelse”. Det var ingen hemmelighed, at Iwata især havde Apple og Google i tankerne. Det var en noget dyster tale, hvor Nintendo mest bidrog med en klagesang, uden at være stand til at tilbyde et egentligt alternativ.

Apple is able to iterate hardware and software quickly and significantly: Nintendo is not. Apple has a window through top tier market positions into mobile, tablet and desktop spaces: Nintendo does not.

A survey just before GDC showed that over a third of all UK and US adults have played a mobile game in the past month, and that 83 percent of mobile phone gamers who own a smartphone said they’d played in the past week.

Underlying Iwata’s GDC address this year was the reality that Nintendo’s dream of owning the mobile gaming space has been destroyed by Apple and Google, and it’s a situation 3DS is highly unlikely to reverse, what with its £40 games and lack of anywhere connectivity.

This elephant in the room set the tone for the entire show. Videogames are not changing. They’ve changed. And Nintendo is suddenly looking as though it simply hasn’t changed with them.

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