The end of Expensive Videogames for the Kiddies

Iphone vs Nintendo DS

My children of 4 and 7 have Nintendo DS's, a Wii, and our old Iphones. By far their favorite device is the Iphones. It plays their games, takes pictures, has their music, and holds their movies. Sure the DS CAN do the same thing, but it's also much easier to manage all that digital-content for the kids through ITunes.

Another extra bonus I've found with the Iphones is we don't need a billion different cables and chargers. we can all just share the Ipod charging cables and either plug them into walls or laptops when on the road.

Prices

We used to buy them games at $20.00 each for nintendo games (and of course less if we could find them used), but lately the kids have been happy enough with the cheap Iphone games. Many games are even downloadable for free. For the most-part the kids just get bored with the games after a couple of minutes playing. $100 for 5 Nintendo games, vs $20 for 5-10 Iphone games, and these can be shared between the idevices.

Attention Spans

Sure, the kids are still young, and their attention-spans are naturally short. But their attention spans are just as short with $20.00+ games that are even designed for their age-group in mind. We might as well get the 99-cent version.


I think Apple has got the App and Gaming Market right. They're able to control the market, while still providing an decent level of quality. Also, the prices are dirt-cheap compared to your old-school cartridge/disc-based systems. Also, with so many apps getting pumped out, you're bound to find the perfect gaming app for your tastes....Sure depth-of-gameplay suffers compared to older games, but who has time to sit down for hours-on-end nowadays?