Steve Jobs giddily called the new iPod touch "the funnest iPod ever" in his multiproduct launch announcement yesterday. Those words may have been lost in the hyperbolic talk of "genius-generated playlists" and "thinner than ever" designs, but the addition of the "fun factor" is a huge step for the company. Essentially, Apple just jumped into the portable gaming market with two big, touch-sensitive feet: the iPod touch and the iPhone 3G. And the current portable gaming leaders, Nintendo and Sony, should be very, very afraid.

Sony and Nintendo have had a huge head start in this market. There are millions of Nintendo DS Lites out there. And Sony's three-year-old-plus PlayStation Portable remains the most powerful portable gaming platform ever invented. In addition, the iPod touch 2G, with its big, beautiful, high-res screen, can certainly hold a candle to Sony's graphics dazzle. But so what? Most of us don't want to chase down and kill realistically rendered virus-infected mutant zombies on our handhelds. We just want to kill some time.

When you're waiting in line at Starbucks tomorrow for your daily caffeine fix, check out what the guy in front of you is doing on his phone (discreetly, of course). Half the time he's probably checking e-mail, but what about the other half? Take a closer look and I bet you'll see him playing some cheesy low-resolution game like Tetris. This is the future of portable gaming.

I speak from experience. Every morning on my train ride to work, I check my e-mail and my newsfeeds on my BlackBerry Curve 8330. My staff knows when I step out of the train station each morning because all of my e-mails are sent simultaneously. On the way home, though, I just want to unwind. That is when I call up BrickBreaker, a version of BrickOut, which ships with every new BlackBerry. Recently, I started looking around at the screens of my fellow passengers and discovered I'm not the only BrickBreaker player around. Everybody is playing it. If not that, then Solitaire, Scrabble, or some Sudoku clone.

Sony never really intended for the PSP to appeal to this audience. Although it has some crossover appeal among the non-gamer crowd, the PlayStation brand was always about serious gaming performance. Probably to its detriment. As a result, Nintendo has dominated the casual gaming market.

Nintendo has sold thousands of GameBoy DS and DS Lite gaming devices, not just to kids, but to ADD-afflicted adults who simply can't stand waiting without some digital distraction. Throw in the casual users, like myself, who will play any damn card game on his phone while waiting for an elevator to go up 11 floors and you have a market of millions.

Since it's always in your pocket, a cell phone can really excel as a gaming device. Or at least it could, if it just had a little more processing power, a slightly larger screen, and an easy way to download games. In other words, if it were an iPhone. Any phone will do in a pinch, but only the iPhone 3G and the iPod touch let you actually pinch the screen to move around.

Why am I so bullish on the iPod touch/iPhone 3G as a gaming platform? Four big reasons:—Next: Four Big Reasons >