iPod touch, MP3 player or Games Machine?

Today as I sifted through the news on the BBC website, I stumbled across a headline; “Apple unveils thinnest iPod yet”. Being a bit of a techno geek myself, this caught my eye and I thought I would have a gander at Apple’s renovations on the iPod Nano and the iPod touch. I rather like iPods, without ITunes I think my music collection would be severely lacking, so I like to keep up with this kind of thing.

At about 1:07 my chipper mood was jarred slightly by a comment about the new touch “rivalling the best portable games consoles”.  I stopped, backtracked the video slightly and listened again. Yes, yes they did just say that an iPod (for music, no?) is rivalling the best portable games consoles.

The reporter and the lady from Apple in charge of iPod marketing then went on to discuss how this new touch is being marketed as a games console. This odd feeling started to sweep over me as they showed “Need for Speed” and all the touch screen features for this skinny little machine. An ominous feeling, a feeling of dread and “haven’t we been here before…?”.

I can’t help but think that when a piece of technology tries to do too much it ends up being criminally inefficient at what it was originally designed for. Take for example my mobile phone. It’s an LG secret with all the bells and whistles. It’s got a touch screen, Wii-Style games, an MP3 player, a 5 mega pixel camera, and you know what I can’t do? Make calls or text. The touch screen is so over-sensitive that I end up putting my nearest and dearest on hold every 5 seconds and it takes me 10 minutes to send a 6 word text message.

The problem seems to be when they specifically try to add games to the mix. I owned an N-Gage when they first came out, and sadly, whilst the game play was brilliant, the shelf life of the actual phone was only about 6 months (if you were lucky). Now, time has passed of course, so maybe the involvement of games in a machine designed for other things won’t completely mess it up? I’m sorry, but I really wish that companies wouldn’t try to involve games in their latest piece of technology. If I want a portable games console, I will go out and buy a portable games console. After the N-Gage, and now my mobile phone, I’m completely put off when games are involved in an already very good piece of technology.

Am I being too pessimistic? Or would you, the reader, agree that the games should be left to the portable consoles?

Well, one thing is for sure, The touch isn’t anywhere near as pretty as the Nano!