Apple eats into Nintendo, Sony sales

Frankfurt : When Max Batch wants to play a video game, he turns to his Apple iPhone.

The 22-year-old German has shunned hand-held consoles such as Sony's PSP and Nintendo's DS, joining a growing number of people who use their smartphones for online and other games, eroding sales of the dedicated handsets.

With more processing power and better graphics than their predecessors, smartphones are eating into the market dominated by Nintendo and Sony. Shipments of game-capable mobile phones are set to rise 11.4 per cent to 1.27 billion this year, researcher iSuppli said last month, while those of video-game consoles may be little changed at 52.3 million.