Nintendo has finally come out and admitted on record that Apple's iPhone is a direct competitor to its DS and DSi handheld gaming consoles.
In its latest earnings report filed this week Nintendo posted a 66 per cent fall in quarterly operating profit due to "slowing demand for its Wii console and a stronger yen."
Boom times end
Of course, the Wii sales boom had to come to an end at some point. Putting this news into some kind of context though, Nintendo is still selling a healthy number of Wiis on a weekly basis, just not as extraordinarily healthy a number as it was last year following the launch of Wii Fit.
With that in mind, Nintendo still plans to sell 26 million consoles worldwide this financial year and a total of 30 million DS and DSi handhelds.
The company also admits that DS sales momentum is slowing due to "increased competition in the handheld business from Apple's iPhone."
Apple has been in the news yet again in recent weeks due to rumours that the company is preparing to release an 'iTablet' style device later in 2009. If that happens, it will be interesting to see how Apple develops gaming on such a device, in addition to the rumoured gaming apps being prepared for Apple TV.
And as for those rumours that VoIP services such as Skype could appear on the DSi, should that happen in the near future, then it might also shake things up in an interesting way...
