Can Apple disrupt Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo in the gaming market? Although not a single one of these companies would say that this is even a remote possibility it is still interesting to analyze their incentives from a disruptive perspective:

• Sony, for instance, has very little incentive to create games such as HarborMaster or Bejeweled 2. Although they are very popular on the iPhone they are way too simple for their core market – teenagers that can memorize 26 combinations for most creative kills. Instead we should expect Sony’s gaming consoles to gain ever more processing power making it possible to create ever more advanced games.
• Apple has every possible incentive to improve the iPhone and iPod to make better and better games for a wider and wider audience. This means that they should be able to pick up more and more customers left behind Sony and Microsoft. My dad, who is 71, got an iPhone a year ago. The last time he played a computer game was in 1986 when I tried to get him to play Defender of the Crown from Atari. Today he has well over 10 iPhone games that he has paid for (Chess and Flick Fishing most popular) and plays them all the time.
• And although Sony may try it – they still have little incentive to develop an outstanding phone with their PSP. People don’t buy it to use as a phone – they buy it to play games with. This may hurt their chances of getting vast, cheap bandwidth.
• iPhone users consume 10 times more bandwidth than any other phone, but AT&T is working hard to meet this demand and has every incentive to do so. So which device may be better placed for super-popular, destined to be eve more popular, online games such as Halo or World of Warcraft?

If Apple develops a large screen iPod Touch which has been rumored forever now, they have an instant ability to create even better games for an ever expanding market. The incentives in these markets certainly seem to suggest that Apple, right now, can and will grow their gaming market while Sony can and may want to cede their gaming market.

Classic disruption.

Sony’s best response to Apple would be to either compete with them head-on for this new, growing gaming market (maybe through SonyEricsson…but they have had a hard time coming up with a phone people want lately) or to use their assets to find another intersection entirely.