Analyst: iPhone has Apple taking a bite out of DS, PSP software sales

by Randy Nelson on Mar 23rd 2010 3:58PM

This whole iPhone as a gaming platform thing might just be catching on. According to a report by mobile analytics firm Flurry, revenue from games sold for Apple's touch-based devices grew from $115 million in 2008 to an estimated $500 million last year in the US. Impressive indeed -- but even more so is Flurry's research showing that iPhone / iPod touch games now account for at least 19 percent of total US handheld software revenue, up from 5 percent in 2009.

Flurry's findings show that most of that share has been taken away from Sony's PSP, which accounted for 11 percent of 2009's handheld software revenue, down from 20 percent the year before. Money taken in from Nintendo DS game sales, on the other hand(held), only decreased five percent since 2008, with Flurry pegging it at 70 percent of the market in '09.

The firm sees Apple continuing to put the hurt on PSP software revenue, pointing out that while downloadable iPhone and iPod touch games are selling "in droves," Sony's introduction of the PSP Go and an increased focus on digital game distribution didn't help the platform hold any ground.

[Via Engadget]

Source

Tags: apple, DS, iPod, market-share, nintendo, sony

Reader Comments (68)

Just as predicted as soon as the casuals get their hands in the pie they start to reward any old game instead of the games with good genes that should be rewarded.

This is how dynasties fall people! The game is over!

Game over, man! Game over!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTifdoKXoxM

Sorry I had to do it...

"This is how dynasties fall people! The game is over!"

Good!

damn Skeet....

thought U was postin this one....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7OyKAFu50M

@Twee

How dare you. Why don't you go choke on your WiiShovelware.

This article doesn't make sense because it doesn't specify how it was determined that the increasing iPhone sales are reducing sales on other systems. If the overall market for handheld software is growing all platforms could be growing overall simultaneously even if one is growing faster than the others.I.e. this only makes sense if the "pie" is the same size year over year.

Ha ha ha.. Oh how I wish to be young and hardcore like you blight (Tmac is that you?) I just have ingested enough mountain dew yet.

@Zen - right on the money. Ignoring overall market growth is ridiculous when a new platform is introduced, especially when most of the people who bought it picked it up for phone use, first and foremost.

Goddamn it Victor Lucas...always overrating iphone games...*sigh*...Its not that fun of a machine to play games on :/

But it's also not that *bad* to play games on. Especially if it's already in your pocket.

It's disappointing that the iPhone/iTouch is taking sales away from PSP and DS because it's "not that bad" even tho it's "not that fun"

to me tuna....it is....only time I play a game on it is droplitz when I'm droppin shitz

Apple is picking up the pace, makes you wonder what Sony is doing to tackle this, I mean, it was already one thing and not so bad that DS was leading, at least PSP had that niche, but now you've got Apple in there and there's nothing stopping Apple products from having the same types of games as PSP apart from controls. SF4 prooves this. Now 3DS has popped out and if what they say is true, it looks to be quite amazing :D

Don't mind us PSP owners Sony, when you're ready, in your own dear time, release PSP2 or something else semi-useful other then Go ¬_¬

Except that compared to PSP games, games on the iPhone are terrible.

true, iphone could never get a good fighter.

I thought the same thing not long ago, but that was because it was just the casual developers who had an interest in it, now you have the likes of Konami, Namco and Square Enix for examples on board and making games for it, FF games, SF games, Tekken games, all the games that made PSP what it was, its only limitation is it's control system, but developers will find a way around that, they always do.

Sony needs to diffrenciate itself again and I don't just mean a simple upgrade in graphics, instant PSP chat, better browser, 2 nubs, more games, less piracy, friendslists, simple things like that, then of course those larger tech changes like 3DS is doing.

But are those games succeeding? The clones of console games didn't succeed on PSP (or on DS, for that matter, at least the ones that were blatantly bolted on from a console experience), that was part of the problem. Why would they succeed on the iPhone?

It got rave reviews because theyre used to trying to play even MORE broken games.

Without buttons, a fighter will only be passable at best. Their rave reviews were a testament to the fact that iphone game standards are horribly low.

@ Mr Khan: Yeah, thats against consoles which is a different argument altogether, but if you put those figures next to PSP and DS figures alone, how do they stack up. Obviously DS could win out if it had a similar game to the iPhone, but how would PSP perform against the iPhone if the same game released on both? That's part of the problem, PSP was supposed to fit that niche, which is why, even though it wasn't AS successful as DS, it would be stupid to say it wasn't successful fullstop, look how many have been sold.

@ arrrgh: Thats probably because developers havn't found creative ways to implement the controls, besides, th casual gamer really wouldn't care whether or not SF4 is better on PSP, they will buy and enjoy it on iPhone, casual gamers make up a majority of the gamers buying DS, PSP and iPhone games, so its business suicide to target the hardcore market strictly.

Also we heard rumour (or it is a confirmation) that Sony wants to make a PSP phone to compete with the Iphone.

Well Sony/Eriksson will go compete with Apple in that field. I bet that they will use the same form factor of the PSP Go.

PSP Go might be a failure but the design when one look at it, could be very good as a portable PSP phone device and thus no more removable media (aside from memory duo).

We all know that the next PSP2 will be more powerful and probably included touch screen too.

But it is interesting to see how the 3DS will perform, with GC graphic level and same ease of programming, PSP success in Japan was largely due to the popular Monster Hunter series and now the series can go on 3DS too and who know…maybe even iphone/itouch/ipad!! If SF4 made it…I don’t doubt a Monster Hunter version for the Japanese crowd!

Also like another poster below, the portable market is growing and Nintendo DS make more money last year than the year before.

yes... games...

The 30 fart apps count, I don't care what you say!

poorly!

What I find interesting I'd that DS hardware sales vastly outstrip iPhone sales. The iPhone moved some 45 million lifetime from 2007-2009, averaging 18 million a year while the SS has averaged 30 million a year over the same period.

The iPhone push should slow down. The novelty of click and buy without paying much attention will eventually become apparent as consumers wise up to the practice.

Effing iPhone spell checking everything to what I don't want it to be. This is why I don't buy their apps. Damned thing is a pain in the rear to use.

Maybe you should slow down and pay attention to what you're writing before you hit "send".

Get a Droid

Huh. The iPhone is a horrible gaming machine in most cases. Their power lays in the number of units.

And if we look at the graph, it's not counted in numbers. It's percent.

The numbers could be double for both the DS and PSP in 2009 vs 2007 but because of the increase in iPhones the number looks smaller.

If you analyze the numbers, you'll see that the DS revenue actually grew (from 1.725bln to 1.820bln), while Yeah, the PSP shrank from 460mln to 286mln.

But if you want to, you could word it as "yeah, the iphone ate the DS share. It was 75%, now it's 70%.

Unfortunately, it's very easy to "bend" numbers to get the result you want, by using percents.

Still, good for Apple. Where's the moneyprinting slot on my iPhone?

much easier to spend 0.99 on crap then 29.99 on something good though.

I won't be giving up my PSP though, although I use it almost entirely for the PSP/PS3 PS1 ports on PSN. PS...

"Money taken in from Nintendo DS game sales, on the other hand(held), only decreased five percent since 2008, with Flurry pegging it at 70 percent of the market in '09."

Actually, money taken in from Nintendo DS game sales *increased* from $1.69bil in 2008 to $1.75bil in 2009.

What you are missing is that the market for mobile gaming increased from 2008 to 2009. This is why pie charts are misleading.

That's what I was just about to say...

It's amazing what you can do by leaving out important numbers.

I gave you a + but just to expand: Revenue went from 2.25B to 2.55B for the portable category "based on our estimates"

If Nintendo's share of revenue went from 75% to 70% then as you said as a whole their revenue increased from 1.69B to 1.785B.

Flurry got their page hits but they certainly have a bias in their reporting of this "analysis."

You know what Nintendo needs?

More Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan

Or more Elite Beat Agents.

Does this include all those crappy little apps that shouldn't be qualified as games?

Its easy there are way more casuals out there, and if that's what makes more money to game makers then that's where they will run. Sad that true gamers will feel the loss

Makes sense.

I really enjoy having an iPhone because its literally an all-in-one device for me. I no longer have to carry around an iPod, a phone, and a DS with me on the go.

Of course the iPhone isn't the first mobile device to put all three things into one device, but it definitely is one of the best solutions.

Now if you excuse me, I'll go back to finishing PvZ. them zombies have made it up on my roof!

There is no way on earth I would EVER consider an iPhone/iPod Touch a replacement for a DS.

See those little things on the DS? Those are called buttons. They make playing games fun.

enjoy your battery.

Rarely do you have to play the DSLite on full brightness...

And the iPhone doesn't have Mario Party.

@ BigAndFat

you do realize that you can type more than one sentence without having to hit enter, right?

@bigandfat

maybe it hurts your eyes??

"Who doesnt play the DS on the brightest setting?"

A large amount of people.
Unless you live in a dark place, there's no reason to have the DS on its highest settings... actually, in a dark place, the lower lighting works perfectly.
I guess you'll need the extra light if there's a glare coming off your screen... but then... you know: You find shade.

Brightest settings on the DS is murder for it.
I keep mine on the second lowest lighting, it suits my eyes just fine and it guarantees DAYS of play when playing in short intervals.

Too many games are lack control on virtual joystick. ugh

I accidentally my virtual joystick.

Argh! This is a really bad chart. You're assuming that the iphone is eating the revenue of the DS and PSP when there is no information about what the total revenue is for either year. It is completely possible that the iphone is simply growing the pie.

But I guess that's not controversial enough.

It's pretty obvious why the PSP lost such a big chunk (actually lost money), there are no major releases or games coming out in the western neck of the woods! Perhaps 4 or 5 games a year (i'm not actually counting, but so far, Disgaea: dark hero days and echoshift, and those are the major releases). Instead, there's almost like a weekly game for DS and iPhone.

I'll just go to Japan.

uhhh more like DS & PSP sales are slowing down due to saturation of the market and the fact that the DS & PSP don't have as many uses as a iPhone....

I mean really....are ALL of the iPhone/Touch users playing games on their devices..... ¬_¬

A lot of 50 million could be 3 million...that's still not everyone....which is pretty much what the DS and PSP owners do

I've had an iPod Touch for over a year now and I haven't bought a single app for it.

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Analyst: iPhone has Apple taking a bite out of DS, PSP software sales

Reader Comments (68)

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