Yesterday, New York Times columnist David Pogue got the privilege to sit down with long-awaited company king Steve Jobs to discuss Apple’s latest marketing strategies on its new iPod product lineups.

The first question he asked was one that has been discussed rampantly by the internet at large as of recent. Pogue straightforwardly asked why Apple put a video camera in new iPod nano and not in the iPod Touch. In response, Jobs simply reiterated what marketing vice president Phil Schiller stated earlier – Apple is really pitching the iPod Touch as a game machine these days. For this to happen, the platform needs to be as inexpensive as possible.

Steve Jobs continued by stating that the company was initially unsure of how to market the iPod Touch. If it were to be a complex multi-touch computing platform, a luxurious music player or a simple and effective gaming platform were all questions of concern. Apple decided to listen to the voices of several consumers who mutually agreed that the device was a very cost effective gaming platform due to the wide variety of low-cost games in the App Store.

Another major hardware-centric question was based on the reason for the new iPod nano being equipped with a CMOS video camera sensor but still not being capable of taking still photos. Jobs replied that the sensors needed to record video are extremely thin and are easily able to fit within the thin structure of the nano. However, the sensors needed for higher resolution still photos with autofocus abilities as in the iPhone 3G S are still much too thick to be crammed into a 0.2-inch thick micro portable music player.

“I’m sure there will always be dedicated devices, and they may have a few advantages in doing just one thing,” he said. “But I think the general-purpose devices will win the day. Because I think people just probably aren’t willing to pay for a dedicated device.”

More here.