With a stranglehold on the casual market, by way of the Wii and the DS, Nintendo, is the company to beat when it comes to sales of consoles and games.

Competitively, none of the companies are anywhere close to where Nintendo is sales-wise but most assume that the one pulling the closest second place is Microsoft, but not in the mind of Nintendo’s North American President Reggie Fils-Aime.

In an interview with Forbes, Fils-Aime actually cites Apple, with its iPhone/iPod Touch, market as being the bigger “near term” threat than Microsoft. With so many games available on the marketplace at such low prices it is hard not to see the iPhone as a realistic competitor.

So what does Reggie feel Nintendo has over those types of games? Investment. While an iPhone game is very much about providing a brief distraction to pass the time, Nintendo’s games, especially on the DS, have the ability to consume gamers. Reggie even claims that he has logged some 150+ hours on Dragon Quest.

Sure, the Nintendo DS games do have the ability to consume players and keep them engrossed, but the amount of content put out on the iTunes store is hardly something to ignore. As titles such as Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, games with real substance to them, begin making their way onto the iPhone, the mobile platform continues to gain momentum - and become an even greater threat.

Not to be outdone, Nintendo is still pushing forward with the 3DS set for release in the earlier part of next year. Gamers might be caught up with Angry Birds or Cut the Rope, but give them some hot new titles paired up with some of the classics, put them in 3D, and pretty soon gamers will start resorting to only use their iPhone to make calls. Crazy.

Do you think that Reggie is correct in asserting that Apple is the bigger near term threat than Microsoft? Is Apple more of a threat than Nintendo assumes them to be? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Forbes