Industry analyst Michael Pachter delights once more in the billionth story to come from Wedbush Morgan's recent state-of-the-industry report. While most people believe that mobile games are the future and that we'll see huge growth in the platform, Pachter and pals completely disagree, quite blatantly stating that "Mobile games are a fad."
Pachter focuses on the iPhone, stating that while the Apple products have seen 1 billion application downloads, "it is not evident that more than 20% of these downloads are games." The analyst believes that the iTunes App Store has made "under $400 million in game downloads." He does think that the market will see a 25% growth over the next few years, but that competition in the sector will eventually leads to its collapse.
The report states that EA's faith in mobile gaming is "misplaced," and that its focus on the system will be "barely profitable." Due to the predicted failure of the mobile game industry, our boy Mikey states that products like the PSPgo and DSi will maintain their niche in the market, "withoutn significant cannibalization" from mobile phones.
He must seem to know something that tons of game publishers don't.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
11:00 AM on 07.01.2009
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Ducking iPhone
The only reason it's off on the iPhone is because everyone who doesn't know about technology (vast majority) have one.
If 20 million people bought the PS3 as a BluRay player, games would still be popular on it if they weren't the focal point.
Assuming the iPhone tomorrow stops supporting games, mobile phone gaming would go back to N-GAGE status.
His point however, I do not understand.
It's here, it's queer, get used to it. It's not going away, it's only going to grow, therefore it will always, from this moment on, be a large market.
So if a fad sticks, like the Wii, then it's really NOT a fad, right?
I don't think mobile games will collapse but I do think they'll hit a plateau where the prices will stabilise(around $5 ish) with production costs still lower than developing for traditional handheld consoles, and with not-that-bad quality standards.
unless everyone decides to spew shovelware then in that case they're doomed.
::goes back to his mobile game development related job...::
And he bases this on what? Since Apple hasn't released any numbers about this, Pachter seems to be pulling data out of his arse.
I think he's pretty spot on fir once though a layman could deduce what he's saying. When your largest two selling games on the iPhone are a 2 year old puzzle game and a well made knock off of a PSP game it should be telling that innovation will take a long time.
Apple does have one advantage. Games can be priced anywhere between free to $20 as far as I know, which outside of the cost of the hardware, is a big jump on the competitors. But they're still cell phone games. Blah blah blah.
I do agree with Black, that if the iPhone wasn't making a firm mobile presence, mobile gaming would indeed crawl back into its previous poor shell. The reason that won't happen is due to games/aps being DLC, and there no being three different iPhones on the market, plus iPod Touch. With these out there, Apple isn't going to fold up and leave the gaming space anytime soon.
For the likes of large devs/pubs like EA, I see no point in them entering iPhone games, because they are looking for huge sales, like those on home consoles, which will never happen.
The real benefit of iPhone/touch games is in favour of the small developer, where a one/two man team can create cracking games/aps, have them sold via iTunes and make a name for themselves, that might change their entire life, and make some good money too.
What Apple must look into though, is better organisation of games from aps, and new from old. I hope they sort this out soon, because then good games won't get buried in amongst junk aps etc.
But yes, I think mobile games have finally arrived, thanks to Apple.
People hate to bash him but most of his "incorrect" predictions are taking out of context, he make his analisys mostly from a economic/bussines point of view.. most of us are gammers it`s a diferent perspective.
I found that in my COUCH the other day.
Oh iPhone, you are HILARIOUS.
Now, will gaming machines be integrated into mobile phones eventually? That's a different story. "Hardcore" gamers expect better technology to support their games, and a phone company can't reasonably create a phone with equivalent power of a Sony device. If the iPhone were something that said: "and it plays games better than your PSP," gamers would jump on it, but I would assume that the price would be higher than it needs to be. The average cell phone user needs a music/video player, not a game player. However, it's nice for the average phone buyer to know that it can play games reasonably well. Think of all "casual" gaming people that bought the DS because they just want to play Sudoku on it. A mobile phone CAN overtake that market.
That good feeling in my pants can't be wrong.