Nintendo hails "powerful" MS, Sony games

Nintendo's UK chief has praised opponents Microsoft and Sony for producing "powerful" products and encouraging industry growth.

Speaking at a Learning Without Frontiers event in London, as reported by MCV, David Yarnton claimed that the arrival of Microsoft and Sony in the games sector has been great for the industry.

The healthy competition has helped "to promote game development, providing the extra tools for developers and help them experiment and explore new ideas and concepts."

"As an industry we can provide people with a lot of different options across formats with the view of having something that can appeal to everyone," he said.

Yarnton went on to admit that there are "really powerful programs and games that come from Sony and Microsoft," citing Media Molecule's DIY PlayStation 3 platformer LittleBigPlanet as a "fantastic example".

Elsewhere in his speech, Nintendo's UK chief focused on how "games are good for us; socially culturally and economically," citing the example of game centres in children's hospitals that encouraged kids to socialise more than they normally would have done. In doing so, this aided their recovery, he claimed.

Yarnton also discussed how Nintendo had helped eradicate the "old image of a gamer 16-24 antisocial male".

"We have children and families all paying together," he insisted. "Almost 50 per cent of Nintendo users are female. We believe at Nintendo games can have more social credibility than being something enjoyed in isolation."