Job's Game

Rhetoric aside, a number of concrete factors in the press conference point to this more aggressive approach to the gaming sector. First, of course, there's GameCenter, the company's stab at an Xbox Live/PSN style service, which allows users to maintain friend lists, compare scores and achievements and invite friends to multiplayer games - as well as providing a game matchmaking service. It is, bluntly, a much better service than anything Nintendo or Sony offer on their handhelds, and a fairly clear challenge to them.

Secondly, and equally importantly, there was the unexpected unveiling of an Epic Games title for iOS, a graphically stunning game which was demoed by walking around a medieval citadel and then taking part in a bout of swordfighting. A free demo of the engine, titled Epic Citadel, was later placed on the App Store for everyone to try.

For most people, the important part of this demo was simply how incredibly good the game looks - with graphical quality which was more like the present generation of HD consoles than like a handheld. It's apparent that Apple's conversion to gaming has not happened overnight - services like GameCenter are the result of a lot of work over many months, and Epic Citadel shows that 3D gaming was a central consideration for Apple in the hardware design of its recent devices.

The promise of console-quality gaming on a handheld device is a major lure, although the majority of iOS games will almost certainly remain in 2D - titles such as Words With Friends and Angry Birds aren't the platform's top sellers because that's all it's capable of, they're successful because they're excellent uses of the platform's capabilities and fit well with how people use the devices. Even so, an RPG or adventure game set in a world as gorgeous as that of Epic Citadel would undoubtedly turn heads, even among iOS gaming refuseniks.

Finally, there was a subtle touch - the unveiling of the TV advertisement for Apple's new iPod Touch devices. At least half of the advert was dedicated to footage of games on the device, significantly more time than was given over to the new headline features (HD video recording and the FaceTime video conferencing system).

Having finally embraced its position as the gatekeeper of one of the fastest growing gaming platforms in the world, Apple finds itself with a unique window of opportunity. Although the gaming world is excited about Nintendo's 3DS, it has yet to penetrate the consciousness of the wider audience - and it will almost certainly lack decent online functionality of the type promised by GameCenter.

Sony, meanwhile, is in the wilderness with the PSP - a device which, although it continues to get high-quality software releases, is in desperate need of a hardware refresh to bring it up to date with consumer expectations of a piece of portable hardware of this type.

In the meantime, Apple finds itself with a range of devices which are comfortably the most powerful handheld gaming platforms around, which sport a mature and trusted digital distribution system, a large installed base, a huge software library and, in the coming weeks, a built-in online gaming solution.

Some analysts have compared Apple's entry into handheld gaming to Microsoft's entry into the console market - yet the comparison with Microsoft's multi-billion dollar landgrab actually underestimates the threat posed by Apple's devices to Nintendo and Sony, if anything. How they respond in the coming 12 months - and how Android handsets develop in the same timescale - is likely to determine the shape of the handheld gaming market for years to come.