iPhone beats Wii, DS, PSP: 'fastest hardware growth in consumer tech history'

Might as well add "netbooks" and ebooks.

"Still think it's not a real gaming platform?"

Yes. Because it isn't. A line graph and a "study" aren't going to change that fact

I am sick of the Apple spin machine.

The ipod brand is popular indeed, however there are actually many media players that are more popular than many ipods. For example the psp is the second most popular media player (seriously) and there are in fact a lot more psps in use than there are ipodtouchs. If anyone has a hard time understanding Apple's use of the term ipod see shuffle, nano, classic and all the prior variants. they are in no way equals in the way a psp is to a psp. Same can be said for their iphone, they are not all equals especially with a ipodtouch as it doesn't even have a camera.

Exactly. iTouch should be lumped with the iPod, not the iPhone.

But hey, if we're going to combine them, why not combine Wii and DS for no reason and really have skewed stats?

I agree with freedom town. I'm sure if you graph the adoption rate of Beanie Babies in the 90s you'd see a similar spike.

Umm... the sales of Beanie Babies has as much to do with video games as the iphone does. Novelty at best.

I disagree, Doom: Resurrection and Geo Defense: Swarm are absolutely fun as hell on the system. I'm not a fan of the virtual pad and buttons type of games but the games that focus on the touch interface are awesome and very fun to play.

Even some of the RPG's are pretty good.

GewurztraminerX:

Why would they "lump" the iTouch with the iPod? Two different interfaces. iPhone and iTouch have the SAME interface and guts for gaming for the most part.

Does the DS have a remote for the input device and is it as powerful as two Gamecubes duct tapped together? C'mon people, use your fucking heads here...

"Why would they 'lump' the iTouch with the iPod?"

@ D dogg:

I suggested that merely because the device in question is called an iPod Touch. So, yeah, iPod Touch + iPod seems to make sense because they are both called iPods.

But yes, they are different. I was reiterating and agreeing to BxGT's original comment.

Oh yeah? Coffee tables outsold all those devices in the same period. Since you can play games on coffee tables it must be the bestselling games platform.

It's really like trying to find the differences between the DSi and the DS Lite. One has a fancy camera, and the other has slightly different features, but they serve the same purpose.

It just wouldn't have looked as impressive if they'd left them separate.

Still, the Apple crap falls under consumer electronics. Pure gaming devices are still serving a 'niche' demographic, even if the products themselves are adopting more cameras and clocks than ever before in order to appeal to wider user bases. The iPhone would always remain a gimped gaming platform compared to a Game Boy or a PSP, and no savvy consumer would be swayed otherwise.

GewurztraminerX:

What I mean when I say "think" is accentuated by this comment: "i mean the iphone is a phone first and the itouch is an mp3 player first"

That's marketing. It doesn't matter WHAT the system is 1st, 4th or even 100th. If 5 million people own it AND it's a viable games platform... why would a company NOT develop for it?

Xbox 360 is for games 1st but I find myself using it more for Netflix than I do games... OH NOES!!

;)

Hold up.

iPhone + iTouch?
That's not fair.

If your gona be fair then lets have
DS + Gameboy.

#1) Apple didn't make this chart, TechCrunch did.
#2) If you haven't played a game on an iPhone, you don't really have any room to criticize since you don't even know what you're missing. Some of these iphone vs ipod touch arguments are proof alone of that- they're the exact same thing! one just has a phone app! Seriously, go play with both and you'll see what I mean.

and finally

#3) I am going to bookmark this comment thread and refer back to it when all of you regulars end up converting. It's inevitable, the iphone is an extremely powerful piece of portable gaming hardware, and it hasn't even been fully utilized yet. Wait and watch, you WILL see.

The carts actually came from a Morgan Stanley analyst. RTFA.

DAMMIT. ......charts*

I like how people jump to conclusions all the time here on Joystiq and NEVER read the full story. Apple didn't create that chart sweetie.

Captian planet is either gay or a woman, both would blow my mind.

I facepalmed at myself. My bad. Jumped to conclusions because the last three charts I saw like this came from Apple (then again, the last three charts had an explicit claim that Apple was dominating the portable games market, not just the implication of it). Either way, it's hardly a fair comparison - they're comparing a cell phone and a portable video/music player with three gaming devices. And besides that, claiming the fastest hardware user growth in consumer tech history when you've only compared it to three other products seems somewhat suspect. What about consumer tech outside of video game consoles, portable media players, and cell phones? There's NOTHING outside of those in the entire history of consumer technology that can approach even the PSP?

BxGT, you're...ahhh fuck it. You're just not worth it.

morgan stanley got paid !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
time to cash our checks...

Why for?

Cody, see comment by bxgt above.

i really hate that people call it "iTouch"

*sigh* why is this so freakin' hard for people to understand? The iPhone and iPod Touch are basically THE SAME DEVICE! The only real difference is one has a phone application and the necessary hardware to support it. They both run the same OS, have the same basic hardware and, wait for it.... run the same software! The reason that they're lumped in together is it's a single platform launched at (almost) the same time whereas the DSLite and DSi had, what, almost three years between them? It's basically the same as counting Xbox Core and Premium systems together as Xbox 360 sales - same basic hardware, couple of functional differences but the software will run on both of 'em.

While we're on the subject of the iPhone... why the snobbery from the hardcore gaming brigade that populate sites such as this? I keep seeing a massive ammount of bile and scorn thrown at the platform and yet here we have a genuine hardware bargain (32Gb, touch screen, bluetooth, wireless, powerful graphics and CPU and all in a real portable form factor for the price of a PSP Go) with a huge and, more importantly, cheap line of games that has some genuinely great titles available and a whole slew of good ones (and bear in mind the development community has only had about 18 months with the SDK at this point). Is it a portable version of a home console like the PSP? Nope, not at all. But as a portable platform it's damn near perfect and I'm amazed that so many seem desperate to make it go away.

I know youre hinting at the iPhone, but technically so is the Blackberry. And really, if you want to be anal about it, theyre both sort of SmarthPhones, I guess.

@Ryan

You do make a good point, except the Blackberry was introduced in the late 90's as a two way pager. It wasn't until a few years later that it became a "phone" with the introduction of voice.

Damn! That was in response to BxGT

dear Lord Engadget is more of an Apple Blog than TUAW is...

Well, they might be fans of Apple, but I don't usually see much bias for it. I see them take jabs at Apple a lot as well.

And hell yesterday they seemed pretty smitten with the Windows 7 launch. :p

What are you pitching a fit over? Would you deny that the iPhone has sold damn well and been adopted very fast? It doesn't make any difference to the game companies so relax.

When I get on the train every morning I see that most the people have an iPhone, ipod touch or a blackberry out - not DS's or PSP's. It isn't fanboyism that's to blame, its just the way the market went.

That's it. I give up. I'm done commenting for today.

The thing is, real gaming platforms have games good enough to be "system sellers"
The DS has a huge number of awesome games like Pokemon and Metroid Prime Hunters, the PSP has goddamn God of War. The iphone has a bunch of ports and minigames that for the most part don't work well with the phones limited tilt and touch controls. When they start making serious games for the iphone that rival some of the better games on the DS and PSP, then maybe it will be a "real" gaming platform.

I think it may sway some phone purchasers to get it other than another phone, but I doubt anyone buys it alone to play games on.

I was planning on getting an iPhone this November, but it definitely isn't for the games, I actually don't even plan on paying for apps except maybe the TomTom thing which is why I was thinking fo going for an iPhone.

If anything this chart is deterring me from buying an iPhone and maybe go with a blackberry instead.