| mrstickball said: I'd say the big difference is that the $3b/yr has come from hundreds of handsets, OSes and carriers. Whereas in the future, that same $3 billion USD (or much more) will come from 5-10 operating systems and market places, thus making them actual competitors to handhelds. |
Honestly, I don't know how exactly those ~$5 billion/year of today's mobile gaming revenue are segemented by carriers and platforms. My guess, though China Mobile is the biggest mobile operator by subscribers (below 15% around the globe), but by revenue generated from games\apps Vodafone should be the biggest for now, simply due to the fact they're serving more wealthy clients. But not for too long, chinese mobile gaming is about to explode soon. Speaking about platforms, Symbian is the largest (a little below 50% of smartphone market afaik), again quite popular in Asia.
But I'm not sure how exactly market concentration will change much for handhelds. Carriers and platforms are only top of the pyramid, there're dozens of final sellers who have a cut in these billions of revenue (Giant Interactive, Tencent, NetEase, Sina, kong.net, d.cn etc. in China, god knows how many of those in Japan, Korea and South Asia).
