Smartphones rocket past consoles for mobile game sales
Way more spent on Android, iOS than DS, PSP
Two years ago, Nintendo's handheld games consoles accounted for 70 per cent of the money made selling mobile games to Americans. This year, they will account for a little over a third of the total.
So says Flurry, a company that tracks sales of mobile games. The cause of Nintendo's plunging market share: Android and iOS.
Back in 2009, smartphone game sales on those two platforms combined amounted to 19 per cent of the market. Now it's 58 per cent. Revenues have nearly quadrupled, rising from $500m in 2009 to $1.9bn in 2011, Flurry said.
Sony's PlayStation Portable has lost out too. In 2009, it accounted for 11 per cent of the US mobile game market. This year, its share is down to six per cent.
Of course, the market is 24.7 per cent bigger this year, with total mobile games revenues rising from $2.63bn to $3.28bn.
That means sales of Nintendo-oriented mobile games have fallen from $1.84bn to $1.18bn, a decline of 36 per cent. Likewise, Sony PSP game sales are down from $289.3m to $196.8m, a drop of 32 per cent, according to Flurry's numbers.
Bear in mind too that Android and iOS generally cost significantly less than PSP and DS titles, so behind those revenue figures lies an even greater disparity in unit sales.
Flurry's figures are based on estimates made for the final two months of 2011, but it's hard to see its figures changing significantly, even if Nintendo and/or Sony have a bumper Christmas.
Sony hopes next year's PSP Vita will win back games sales from smartphones. ®
COMMENTS
People seem to dismiss that those added game sales are on a demographic that wasn't interested in mobile gaming, and that "mobile gaming" for them used to mean Snake or BrickBreaker.
In other words, its the Wii all over again.
I disagree
The quality of Android gaming is dire, to say the least, as indicated by a distinct lack of Android game reviews on here.
Of course there are going to be more mobile phone game sales than PSP/DS game sales, ***because there are more mobile phones than PSP/DSes***. You cannot expect to qualify statements like "Sony's PlayStation Portable has lost out too" & "a decline of 36 per cent" *when smartphones and PSP/DS are two gaming systems*.
Basically, PSP & DS compete for market share because they are both standalone game systems, with similarly priced games. If you compare 1 million PSPs vs 1 million DSes vs 100 million smartphones, which one do you *think* is going to have the greater market share in games?
Fail.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with you Mr Smith. A good handheld title has many aspects to it that a mobile phone can never hope to obtain.
A dedicated control system is of course the big fall back that everyone goes for, although in fairness and impartiality, some games on the DS that focus on stylus use could be replicated on the mobiles but in turn the price would be more than 99p (Rune Factory for instance).
Mobile phones can offer a mediocre experience, I wouldn't want to lay on my bed and play some Japanese H game on an iPhone, although, again, to be impartial, the iPhone doesn't suffer from sticky keys *grin* Actually the iPhone and Android would be a good market for H games, touch controls... umm... umm.. yep, I've just had a business idea that'll make me richer than that dude who brought out minecraft (though I'm 100% sure it'll never get past the Apple censors).
The thing with consoles is that you can't replicate the experience on a phone, unless it's a game which requires time and patience to play, games which require some element of twitch skillz cannot translate over, you don't have the bumpers to pull or the buttons to prod.
My favourite game on my PSP is Harvest Moon : Innocent Life (sounds like a H game farming simulator, though in most harvest moon series the girls put out if you give them a turnip every day....) there is just too much going on to give it a decent play without decent controls, and whilst the iPhone 4.1 could probably play Wipeout at 30fps, could you honestly say you could play it with the same sort of skill you could on a hand held console?
@Barry
Agreed. Every time I read an article along these lines I die a little inside.
Can I get Super Mario World on an iPhone?
Can I get Final Fantasy Crisis Core on an Android?
No? Then shut the fuck up with the "death of the PSP and DS" angle which most articles like go for.
Kind of misleading title
Console doesn't bring the handhelds to mind. Just things like the Xbox or PS3.
