Smartphone platforms are making big strides against Nintendo and Sony platforms in the portable gaming market, according to a new study, which is tough news for DS and PSP gaming devices.
Of the two, Nintendo lost the most in portable gaming as whole, with its DS dropping from 70 percent of portable game revenue in 2009, down to 57 percent last year. The drop for Sony's PSP to 9 percent, from 11 percent a year ago, was less significant.
Flurry's results underscore the increasing disruption that mobile and social games pose to the traditional gaming industry.
The study states that the "significant majority" of the market share for the rising smartphone combination was attributable to iOS gaming, though the survey didn't break down the revenue between Apple's iOS and Google's Android.
The growing smartphone market is fueling some of the strength in iOS and Android games, along with the fact that these games are a lot less expensive. IOS and Android games are often priced at $10 or less, versus the $30 starting price for a DS or PSP title.
The mobile buying model, which increasingly includes in-app purchase billing, makes getting them even easier. Another factor that will help pull portable gaming numbers away from Sony and Nintendo is the emerging tablet market, which many use as portable gaming devices.
News that game developers are beginning to design games for the iPad 2, as well as the introduction of a slew of Android tablets coming to market this year, can't bode well for the DS and PSP makers.
But game device makers are stepping up their game and developing cutting-edge devices to capture consumer interest. Nintendo released the 3DS to strong initial sales, and Sony is looking to launch its high-end NGP with performance enhancing quad-core processor and 5-inch OLED later this year, hoping it might stave off the iOS and Android competition.
Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata recently railed against smartphone games, saying their platforms "have no motivation to maintain the value of gaming," during his keynote address at the most recent GDC conference.
Nevertheless, experts are interpreting the Flurry data to indicate the Nintendo platform is struggling. And to the surprise of some, the culprit isn't Microsoft's Xbox, but rather Apple's iOS.
Despite gains from smartphone platforms, console gaming, as opposed to portable gaming, continues to own the lion's sharing of the gaming market. It comprised 76 percent of the estimated $10.7 billion gaming market in the U.S. last year, up from 71 percent the previous year.
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