Alan Wake developer Remedy believes that Sony and Nintendo need to significantly overhaul their portable efforts if they're to compete against the rising popularity of smartphones and tablets. According to executive VP Aki Järvilehto, the DS and PSP concept just won't cut it.
"Right now you can buy tons and tons of fun on iOS with the price of a single handheld console game," he declared. "Heck, you can get tons of fun for free with advertising based concepts. So I do think the traditional handheld consoles will need to reinvent themselves if they want to compete."
Unlike some "traditional" developers, Järvilehto embraces the concept of mobile and social gaming, believing it to be a big part of the future: "Games and gaming as an experience is certainly changing - platforms are evolving and developers and consuming is evolving with it. On iOS we think it's totally awesome that you can buy a game like Death Rally, six hours of console quality gaming with high production values, with just $0.99."
While I think there's room for dedicated gaming systems, Sony and Nintendo definitely do need to step up. Sony's PSP Minis program failed to compete due to high prices, while Nintendo still hasn't gotten the 3DS' digital marketplace online. Nintendo and Sony look lost and stumbling in their half-hearted attempts to match what iOS can offer.
Remedy's Take on the Booming iOS Market [Industry Gamers]
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:
12:40 PM on 05.24.2011 | 
The $60 structure doesn't seem to be sustainable, but I can't imagine a dollar is sustainable either.
Give it two years for Smartphones to saturate a bit more, and people will respect it - I suspect one major reason the "hardcore gamer" demographic hates mobile gaming is because their parents won't buy them a Smartphone.
However, some games (like most of the PSP Minis) are worth a buck at most, and Sony/Nintendo would do well to acknowledge that. Charging ten bucks for Tetris on PSP when the same game is five bucks on iTunes just doesn't cut it.
Games are worth what people want to pay for them, even on iTunes, where people *will* drop more cash for a game that deserves it.
Right now, Sony and Nintendo's digital platforms face a platform that not only offers one-buck games, but games that go free ALL the time. Unless it can match that, I don't think either system will have a downloadable platform that can hope to compare.
The only reason why mobile games considered "good" is because they cost a dollar.
I would rather have a masterpiece that was worked on for four years by a group of eighty people and have to pay $60, than pay $1 for a Angry Birds knock off some guy made in a month during his spare time.
You get waht you pay for. Developers need to stop kissing mobile gaming's ass.
So he can FAIL.
Dyack may be many things but he was also absolutely right, developers need to get PAID and the apple market is just far too broken for that.
That said, DS games shouldn't be anything over £20 because they cost nothing compared to home consoles games to develop. With the fidelity of the 3DS and the dumbass NGP, it's harder to say.
Unfortunately, I think Nintendo and Sony are too arrogant (and scared) to admit that the mobile gaming market will rival their handhelds sooner rather than later.
Also a ton of console/portable games are pretty awful too. It's not like bad games is a concept unique to mobile games
So he can FAIL.
Dyack may be many things but he was also absolutely right, developers need to get PAID and the apple market is just far too broken for that.
That said, DS games shouldn't be anything over £20 because they cost nothing compared to home consoles games to develop. With the fidelity of the 3DS and the dumbass NGP, it's harder to say.
The mobile gaming market is practically brand fucking new. Stop acting like it's been around for 10 years, now. Developers can charge whatever they want on the mobile market, and many are succeeding by doing so.
Also, Dr-Peace? Way to be classy, hoping that a developer fails in its business. What do you know about the mobile gaming market, or whether it's broken? Are you a developer? No? Just a stupid kiddie who likes to talk shit? Yeah, I thought so.
Sony I see struggling everywhere but Japan. Although the Japanese sales will probably be strong enough to keep them around.
I think what both Nintendo and Sony are doing is fine for the Japanese market. I agree with him though that the traditional handheld strategy won't be enough in North America or Europe anymore.
And the only companies bitching are those not talented enough to make dedicated handheld games.
hahahah is this a joke? because you seriously cant be that dumb
I am actually in the process of making my first indie game, and I refuse to make it for the iOS (even though Epic's UDK supports it) because there is no point, so yes I know more about development than you :P . You're gonna have to wait a few months for me to prove it though!
If you actually paid attention, the fact that it's so hard to sell a game on the iOS that isn't throwaway garbage or more complex than a slingshot game is common knowledge.
There is nothing on the iOS that can honestly be compared in terms of quality to a truly great handheld game.
And IOS cant offer anything in terms of real gaming dedicated handhelds can.
Once again jim the ios fanboy spreading this garbage.
The other thing that isn't taken into account often enough is BUTTONS... or lack thereof. iOS is the Wii of the mobile gaming industry, while the DS and PSP are like the 360 and PS3. iOS games are fine for your grandmother and some hipsters, but alot of gamers want buttons and games like Pokemon, Metal Gear, Radiant Historia, and God of War that they can play on the go... not ten different finger flicking games. In fact, in revenue, Pokemon ALONE, dwarfs the entire revenue of iOS gaming.
I don't forgive things for being new. Steam is relatively the same age as the mobile game market and it has done a much better job of being organised, having quality products, and fair prices.
The only reason why half the people love mobile gaming is because they think they're going to make the next Angry Birds. The other half is too stupid to realize how shitty the games are.
I have an iPhone. I have a BlackBerry. The only game that actually held my attention and was well done is Plants vs Zombies. I'm sure there are others. But the market is over saturated with bullshit that people just gobble up because it's 99 cents. It's lowering quality standards.
Why make a good game when a mediocre game is just as likely to sell?
The other thing that isn't taken into account often enough is BUTTONS... or lack thereof. iOS is the Wii of the mobile gaming industry, while the DS and PSP are like the 360 and PS3. iOS games are fine for your grandmother and some hipsters, but alot of gamers want buttons and games like Pokemon, Metal Gear, Radiant Historia, and God of War that they can play on the go... not ten different finger flicking games. In fact, in revenue, Pokemon ALONE, dwarfs the entire revenue of iOS gaming.
Yes I see all the people who have no idea what they are talking about in front of me.
You dont see one developer who makes dedicated games badmouth ios or handhelds because they have class.
The other way around. Not so much
The average game makes 0 dollars in revenue.
@Dr-Peace - Why is the minimum required level of quality for a smartphone game have to be a "truly great handheld game"? Are you honestly trying to ignore the endless expanse of shovelware garbage that makes up 99.99% of the dedicated handheld gaming market?
Yes and no, the thing is that while they might be selling the game significantly cheaper.
You get a scenario where people aren't determining which game to buy over another game they are picking up every game that they are interested in because they have all become affordable.
As such they are selling significantly more games. They make up the difference in the lower price point by the volume of sales. In the end they will likely be making as much if not more than they were selling at a higher price point.
To any developer who would say they can't afford to sell their games cheaper than they are .... I point to region locking and the fact that they probably already are.
You also get the added boon of massive competition. Which means a ton of shovel ware but also huge volumes of innovation. Not just from companies but from individuals who are working on games in their spare time.
street fighter on 3ds and street fighter on ios
Any good game on the ds/psp and any good game on the ios
Nough said.
Are they saying that Street Fighter on the iPhone is equal to Street Fighter 4 3D? Beyond the obvious control issues, dedicated gaming handhelds have the ability to add more game specific features, and better pipelines for additional content and updates. There's just more you can do with a real gaming platform, developers just don't seem to care.
That's why Angry Birds is popular despite being a glorified Flash game, like a good majority of iOS and Android titles. This whole .99 cent crap is turning gamers into cheapasses who judge the value of a game solely on it's price and nothing more.
Mister IOS troll
"iOS user will download 2.5 games each month, and the vast majority of them (88%) is a free game."
http://www.ipad2-video-converter.com/blog/63-million-ios-users-daily-download-games-over-5-million-times/
Now go away and play your shovelware
Then there's the lack of d-pad and buttons. Touch-only is nice for some games, but you can't seriously tell me you'd play Street Fighter on iPad over the 3DS version? Stick-on joystick doesn't cut it, sorry.
iOS games are a profitable market for people that don't really game otherwise. Those people couldn't discern the difference between a PS1 and a PS3 anyway, much less a DS and 3DS or PSP and NGP. I know plenty of those people, they are not in the same market as those that want a 3DS or NGP, who want more substantial experiences.
Personally, I would love to have an iPad2, but I don't really want one for games, just the other things I could do with it. The games are in the stone age and don't appeal to me that much. I'd buy SE's games and ignore the rest until other developers that can create substantial games showed up.
You are obviously uneducated on this subject.
Steam has various indie games availabe for sale. Not in the volume that gets released on the iPhone but that's why it's GOOD. There's quality control. There aren't 7,000 versions of the same game cluttering the system.
I can see you're just some enraged fanboy though and youy aren't going to listen to reason. Have fun in your dreamland, Kirby.
"These free games of contributions should not be underestimated, according to the survey, iOS platforms 40% revenue now comes from free games. The second half of 2011, game purchases will exceed 50% per cent of all iOS gaming revenue.
According to the survey, in the United States and the United Kingdom, and Germany, and France, and Spain and the Netherlands and Belgium in the iPhone user, there are five to 50% play iPhone games.
Although there are up to 15 million United States and 7 million iPad users to play games on the iPad–more than the number of players of the Sony PSP gaming revenues on the–iPad only 10% per cent of all iOS gaming revenue.
The survey also found that iOS game can achieve so much success is mainly those top-level game of excellent performance: iOS platforms Top25 downloads and revenues of the game is ranked 5 to 6 times for 25 to 50 games."
The sad truth is we have all played them
I spent 5 minutes with angry birds before wanting to kill myself and then went back to zhp.
Like I said you wont see dedicated handheld game developers spreading filth to either ios or dedicated handheld gaming. They have class
As I recall that average of $700 came from a previous article that stated it was the average revenue from any one of 17,000 FART APPS. Which have no bearing on actual games. If anything it proved that you can get on average $700 for 3min of work, which would suggest the market is actually highly viable.
As for Pokemon being bigger than the whole iOS games market ..... a well established franchise that has existed for over a decade, has multiple TV series, several movies, tons of video games and a TCG not to touch on the toys and spinoffs. Is doing better than a market that started like three years ago?
Really? I wouldn't have guessed.
I think you should leave now. Being the ios troll you are your identities been discovered. You ignored What I highlighted in that article. We arent talking about what rakes in the most revenue for ios. We are talking what the revenue is.
And the fact that 88 percent of the games are free ones. AVERAGE revenue is close to 0
Wake me up.
Until then. Its developers talking out of there ass.
Steam has been around for the better part of a decade. Smartphones with hardware capable of playing anything better than Tetris and Bookworm have been around for about 2-3 years.
Then there's the content comparison that you made. You compared Steam to the smartphone gaming market, when they are two completely different things. Just because Steam offers indie titles doesn't make it a direct, 1-to-1 comparison. Steam exists, and is successful, because you can buy BIG NAME titles thru it.
Yeah, no. Mobile gaming is hurting gaming.
Well you can wake me up when the iOS has an epic action or RPG game that's critically acclaimed and has dozens of hours of real (not randomly generated) content. When it has something as good as Pokemon.
The system is also immediately handicapped in what it can do simple because of the weak control scheme. Touch buttons will never replace real ones.
This leads to small and very simple games that resemble something you could probably make with Flash, this overflow of purposely bad quality software aiming to rip people off a dollar at a time leads to the economy and expectations hitting rock bottom. Nobody aside from the few big gamers that wants to spend more than a dollar, and so the people that do take chances won't be rewarded.
Yes, handheld consoles like the DS have a LOT of crap, but the economic scale is large enough that we have in-built expectations, resources (gaming sites) that keep track of the market and tell us what is worth it, quality can stand out and is easy to notice. The cream of the crop doesn't just sink to the bottom.
The iOS market looks like the gaming market before the big crash.