Apple's already in the handheld gaming biz with the iPhone and iPod touch. Seems like developers agree too.

They've already got more installed units than Sony and will likely eventually catch Nintendo - though that may be by the time Nintendo moves to a new platform. As far as gaming dollars it's a lot more difficult to calculate, even if I knew all the software numbers. Since the idevices aren't strictly gaming-related it's not fair to say unit sales are gaming hardware sales. But if you put that aside, and you listen to some analysts that are somewhat grounded and realistic, Apple is doing very well with unit profits. Much better than Sony, though I have no idea how much money Nintendo brings in from their handhelds. The App Store, again, not strictly games, is also booming and brings Apple an estimated 100-something million per month according to the last report I saw.

I also don't see a point in a tablet/slate general purpose computer with today's software. If Apple does move into this space, they'll bring along something completely new, unlike what's been mocked up so far. None of the iPhone mock-ups or predictions were even close to reality. The fact that Apple would turn the phone industry on it's ass wasn't expected by anyone. Today there's no arguing that Apple has created the de-facto "benchmark" in a hand-held platform. It's not quite ubiquitous, but it's the closest thing we've ever had and it's been changing "mobile" computing since its debut.

It's unwise to underestimate Apple as much as it is to overestimate. Thankfully for Apple, the people in the first camp usually belong to the competition and detractors while the second camp are the already locked-in fan-boys.

Let's see what happens in two weeks.