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

This pie chart is garbage and so is the analyst. Looking at the percentage of portable game software revenue is completely misleading.

all it started with nintendo and its "revolution", yeah the real and only revolution here its the casual taking over the gaming, the wii, ds and iphone its signs of change.. dark days will come

I just got a Droid from Verizon (I left my Iphone because I hate AT&T), and its absolutely spectacular. Does anyone here know if the specs on a Droid can handle most of the iphone/ipod game libraries?

iPhone GTFO!

Both the post on this blog and the actual article is rather problematical. It gives the impression that the iPhone is in direct competition with the DS and the PSP, and is eating into the market share held by the two traditional handhelds. While this certainly may be the case, whether it is or is not is never addressed. It is very possible that iPhone games attract a different kind of consumer than the DS and PSP, expanding the market rather than taking a larger piece of a fixed pie.

The nice thing about the iPhone is I'm already carrying it everywhere and all the games I play are free. How many free games are there for the DS?

The games for the iPhone might be simple and gimmicky but boy does that sound familiar (I'm looking at you wii)

Did you guys know that you can use the iPhone as a phone as well? It's true.

"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."

Well, that might not be true. The 70% of 2009 handheld game sales versus the 75% of 2008 game sales is not against a specific dollar amount, it is against the total sales for that particular year.

If game sales increased, Nintendo might have made more money while losing "market share", which is different from "money taken in". If 2009 handheld sales decreased versus 2008, then Nintendo lost revenue from 2008 to 2009. I imagine though, that the amount of money spent on handhelds in 2009 went up, so maybe Nintendo brought in more money but lost market share.

They managed to get hold of PSN revenue from sony? I'd like to see that all by itself.

If apple can drive sony out of the handheld market fine, MS will drive apple out just as soon as they release a real handheld gaming device (IE: not Zune HD, not PSP, not iPhone, maybe Windows Mobile 7).

I think this group who made this statistic is smoking the good stuff. The people who are going to buy this are the apple heads those who already have an ibook and ipod and iphone and every other little apple thing possible. I as a gamer would never think oh hey the ipad... thats where the games are at. I am sticking to my psp and DS. Unless you think the new mario is going to come out on the ipad in which case... the controls would suck.

I think that these charts are a bit off. It's a comparison of revenue, not really of market share, since it doesn't take into account other mobile gaming platforms (windows mobile, Android and Symbian) however small they may be. Also it doesn't show that Apple grew the market in a way that no one else has previously. Both the casual gamer and developer have benefited from the iPhone platform.

I'm not going to complain and belittle Apple for their efforts. Nintendo and Sony, have had a captured audience, years of experience and the framework to do the same thing Apple did, but sooner and on a larger scale. They chose not to because it would disrupt their profit models.

Why are Nintendo & Sony's developer costs so high, when they want to attract as many as possible?

Why are the licensing agreements almost Draconian? (I'm looking at you Nintendo.)

WTF is up Sony trying to copy Nintendo's DS model, by releasing only modest upgrades to it's PSP line? The reason why people first loved the PSP was that it was a radical change from the DS, and offered the gamer real power and options.

My last question, is why did it take Apple to really push the idea that it's mobile gaming? For example, if you turn the device off, or switch apps, you should be able to resume the game where you left it. Not on most DS and PSP games. If you didn't save your progress, guess what? You're screwed.

I don't understand why people are not willing to admit that certain games are almost meant for a touch interface. Any time management games (airport mania, sally's series, dinner dash), adventure games (monkey island, broken sword), puzzle/card games (stoneloops, solebon, brain challenge, even tetris), tower defense games (plants vs. Zombies) and iPhone unique games such as Rolando and Spore Origins ... they all work really well with touch and in no way do you feel limited by the control scheme. Even as a Rock Band owner, I thought the iPhone version was a unique experience and take on the series. Some of the ports aren't half bad too, Street Fighter, GTA or original Wolfenstein for example. Yes, most of this caters to casual pickup-and-go gamers, but we have already seen how successful that model can be.