EVERYONE WANTS A BITE OUT OF THE APPLE

For weeks, rumors have circulated in the gamer blogosphere that Nintendo (NTDOY) would release a new version of its portable DS video game console. On Oct. 2, the Japanese game company made it official at its annual Nintendo Conference in Tokyo, saying the dual-screen DSi would be on store shelves in Japan at the beginning of next month. Consumers overseas will have to wait until sometime in 2009 to get theirs.

The new DSi is Nintendo's attempt to answer the threat the company faces from a newcomer to the gaming business: Apple (AAPL). The Cupertino (Calif.) tech company entered the market with the release of its iPhone 3G in July. While Nintendo predicts strong earnings growth for this year (BusinessWeek.com, 8/29/08), some analysts have worried that Apple will take a chunk of a market that has belonged almost entirely to the DS and Sony's (SNE) PlayStation Portable.