Apple: DS and PSP "don't stack up"

Apple VP Phil Schiller has said that over 21,178 "games and entertainment" titles are available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which he reckons makes them the leading handheld gaming devices on the market.

"They don't really stack up any more," Schiller said yesterday of the DS and PSP, which only have a 3078 and 607 games available, according to his statistics. Wimps!

Speaking at an Apple event in San Francisco, which also saw the announcement of an upgraded iPod Touch, he added that DS and PSP don't have multi-touch screens or anything like the App Store, and that their games are at least twice as expensive as those for iPhone and iPod Touch.

With that said, PSPgo aims to capture the spirit of the App Store when it launches on 1st October with its Minis iniative, also compatible with older PSPs, while the DS has DSiWare. Neither DS or PSP can compete for volume with the App Store, however.

Elsewhere, recovering Apple boss Steve Jobs told the New York Times that the Touch has now become primarily a gaming device after a shaky start with a weak identity.

"Originally, we weren't exactly sure how to market the Touch," he said in an interview. "Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine.

"We started to market it that way, and it just took off. And now what we really see is it's the lowest-cost way to the App Store, and that's the big draw. So what we were focused on is just reducing the price to $199. We don’t need to add new stuff. We need to get the price down where everyone can afford it."

In terms of market share, there are now more than 50 million iPhones and iPod Touches in users' hands - a number that's practically neck-and-neck with Sony's PSP, which boasts numbers of 51 million. The DS has reached well over 100 million, but has been available for six years compared to Apple's two.