According to new research from firm DFC Intelligence, games for the iPhone/iPod Touch will take a large 25 percent of the portable gaming market in 5 years as the Nintendo and Sony handhelds have nearly reached full saturation point.
Overall, the firm believes the total market will grow to about $11.7 billion in sales by 2014.
“The dedicated portable game systems from companies like Nintendo and Sony are still expected to lead the market, but it appears growth for these devices has peaked,” says analyst David Cole, via GI.biz. “The platforms from Apple are expected to be responsible for the bulk of market growth over the next few years.”
8000 people were surveyed in the US and the EU, and about 60 percent responded that they had played games on their mobile phones in the last year with 40 percent of those saying they had paid for an application. The Apple App Store was the number one service named for purchases.
About 30 percent owned a DS/DSi while 15 percent owned one of the two Apple products.
“With the iPhone and iPod Touch, Apple has finally delivered mobile developers a platform with an attractive business model and a rapidly growing installed base of active consumers,” added Michel Kripalani, president of Oceanhouse Media.
Result for: game system
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto made a few statements this week in regards to the eventual Wii successor, saying the console will likely be smaller and cheaper and less of a “toy.”
Miyamoto, during the interview with Popular Mechanics says: “With both the Wii remote itself and Wii Motion Plus, what we’ve been able to do is introduce an interface that is both I think appealing and at the right price for a broad audience. And while we don’t have any concrete plans for what we’ll be doing with hardware in the future, what I can say is that, my guess is that because we found this interface to be so interesting, I think it would be likely that we would try to make that same functionality perhaps more compact and perhaps even more cost-efficient.”
He did confide that the Wii is sometimes viewed as a toy compared to the PS3 or Xbox 360 but that the Wii successor will still focus on “play.”
“I think originally video-game systems were viewed as a toy, and they were something you played with,” added Miyamoto.
“Whereas now I think we’re starting to see a blurring of the lines, where, obviously, the internal guts of a video-game system is essentially a computer, and we’re gradually seeing video games moving beyond simply entertainment into other aspects of everyday life.”
“As time goes on, I think we’re going to see how the system of the video-game console and this interactive interface is going to gradually bleed in to other elements of, say, home electronics and daily life,” he concluded.
Result for: game system
Microsoft has confirmed a new Xbox 360 Pro bundle for Europe today that will play to one of the system’s biggest strengths, its blockbuster Halo franchise.
Beginning on February 29th the new “Best of Halo” Xbox 360 Pro Bundle will go on sale around Europe with “Halo Wars”, “Halo 3″, and an Xbox 360 Pro video game system plus a wireless controller. The suggested retail price is €269.
The “Halo” franchise, now in its fourth installment, is a billion dollar franchise and is an Xbox exclusive. Halo 3, released last year, made over $300 million USD in sales in its first week of release and was even blamed for Hollywood’s poor showing in October.
The bundle will be available in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Slovakia, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Republic of Hungary, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
