Mobile game publisher ngmoco has slammed Sony's Next Generation Portable and Nintendo's 3DS.
The NGP – Sony's PlayStation Portable successor – is "dead on arrival", and the Nintendo 3DS's 3D visuals are "gimmicky", said outspoken CEO Neil Young.
"I think they are hurt; I think they're clearly hurt," Young told IndustryGamers.
"I think PSP is done and the new [NGP] is dead on arrival. It's really difficult to compete with an app store that has hundreds of thousands of applications and a wide range of options where the average price paid is around $1.20 and there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands, of free applications that are really high quality.
"So I just don't think Sony's going to be able to compete with that."
Experts believe the NGP may struggle in the face of the mobile phone gaming phenomenon.
Sony has pointed towards the NGP's beefy horsepower and PlayStation 3-like visuals as its most eye-catching qualities.
"It's not a PS3 quality experience," Young insisted. "And in terms of getting broad adoption, having great processing power is not necessarily a prerequisite for great adoption in the marketplace.
"You need a range of things and what I think the iPod touch and iPhone have been able to do is offer people Swiss army knife-type functionality for a device that plays games really well.
"It's not like it's crap at playing games – it's pretty good at playing games and it can do a whole bunch of other things as well."
The Rolando publisher was kinder to the Nintendo 3DS, however.
"I think Nintendo will likely be competitive," Young said. "My personal opinion is that the 3D piece of the puzzle is kind of gimmicky. But Nintendo has great franchises and there are tens of millions of people who want to participate in those franchises, so that always helps.
"But the real question is the degree to which there's a third-party community."
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Harsh words from the publisher of such famous titles as "Touch Pets: Dogs/Cats" or "We City/Doodle/Farm/Rule".
