The only way that is viable is if they put together a full platform of games and phone calls in one family of devices.  The big reason the iphone has taken off is it has combined all the functions (ipod, phone, game system) into one single device so it just seems like a waste of time and space to bring another device that only does one thing (like the PSP is).  

   The PS3 has had a hard time finding its footing and it was only a year behind the 360, if Sony was going to make their own phone platform from scratch they would be 85 million behind the iphone if they released it today which hurts.

   I have to think that Sony, like it or not, will be headed the way of Sega and the gamegear sooner then they think unless they really throw everything behind Android or something (Android REALLY needs it, the slate of games on that platform is awful.  There are more games released on the iphone in a month then on Android...ever, and the ones there are tend to be really low quality with a handful of exceptions like the baseball game and the survival horror game which end up on the iphone too).

First off, I really repsect your opinion. You have a lot of great thoughts on the smartphone wars, and have thought them out.

However, I do have some disagreements:

Android has actually had tablets for a long time. Archos has had multiple types available running Android. Other tablets are coming out, and will feature many different things which give them a lot of variance with form factors.

As for the low-end product like the iPod, I agree there isn't a device out there....Yet. That is the key. Like the iPod MP3 player many years ago, it took a little while for others to come out with knock-offs which took a nice little share of the market away from Apple. Likewise, companies will roll out touchscreen iPod Touch ripoffs. The caveat with them is the market, so its only safe to assume that they will begin to adopt another OS, which would likely be Android. Although that is speculation, I'd imagine it'll happen in the next year or two. Zii was/is supposed to come out with an Android-based uber-pod for ~$200 with the same specs as an iPhone 3GS, but I haven't seen enough to make a definitive note on it yet.

Very true. However, the same can be said for older 1st-gen iPhones and iPod touches being unable to run high-end iPhone games. Its not as severe, but it does exist.

Having said that, developers will have to choose which platform they want - a more closed one, or a more open one with a much larger (likely) userbase. Lets not forget that devs can simply make multiple versions of a game for different OS versions...Or simply make a game that will work on everything. 2 examples are Farm Frenzy which has multiple versions, and the other being Robo Defense. Both have sold real well on Android.

I would disagree that is the reason as to why games aren't as good on Android. The real reason is that developers haven't focused on Android very much, due to it being much smaller...There isn't as much money in Android (yet) so they aren't trying.

Certainly agree that the iPhone is going to be the next big thing. I'm just thinking more in the 5+ year timespan, and not the 1-5 like what the iPhone is set to do great in. Right now, we're in the PC-Apple-Commodore battle of the 80s. We're at that point that closed systems dominate. However, I believe that will change in a few years.

I agree that it should see great sales this year. However, lets not forget that the iPhone does have 2 great weaknesses:

1. Its limited by carrier. In the US, its on AT&T. Comparatively, WinMo, BB and Android are on all 4. That is a much bigger piece of the pie than what the iPhone has the potential for.
2. Its limited by form factor. Not everyone likes phones without keyboards. Apple will not (or at least is very unlikely to) make a slider, flip, or other device....Android has, and will in the future.

Agree here. I think we'll see the iPhone rival DS software revenue in about 3 years, and Android rival the iPhone in about 5.

Lets not forget that there are a lot of other kinds of phone buyers out there - business professionals, texters, people that don't care, ect. There are a lot of people out there that won't buy an iPhone or a smartphone in general just because they are cost-prohibitive. About 85% of all phones sold are featurephones or dumbphones. The thing about that, is that featurephones always get more....Features...And dumbphones get smarter. Eventually, these phones will become less balkanized and adopt central OS platforms as opposed to the horrendous ways they work now. I believe that when that comes, Android will be in the best position, as its really just between it, WinMo and Symbian for cross-manufacturer abilities.

When that happens - and I believe that will be in about 3-4 years - Android will sell really well, as Apple's marketshare really isn't that large when you look at the BIG picture. There are 1 billion phones sold a year. What happens when these billion phones must have a central market place? It can't be iTunes, because Apple won't sell it to others.

That is where I see Apple take a backseat to Android. Yes, its about 5-6 years in the future, but I see this like Mac vs. the PC in the early 90s. In the end, weather we like it or not, consumers and manufacturers prefer the model that can be custom suited to their needs. That is not the iPhone. That is not the iPhone by a long shot.

Stick, Nintendo has been in this game for decades, they know what it takes to make great games, its why they can keep beating off larger companies, Sony, MS and Now Apple, nothing new, just different actors

How many times have we heard Nintendo is doomed, or a company is a threat to Nintendo?  Seriously you can keep thinking apple and android are a threat, but the song remains the same

I AGREE CAUSE I GOT A DROID!

I never said Nintendo was doomed. I just said thier handhelds are going to face a market-changing move after the 3DS generation. I fully believe Nintendo will make the right moves to stay in the game, as they always have. Look at what they did with the DSi with downloadable games, a camera, and other phone-esque features. Same can go for the Wii and Netflix. Nintendo isn't dumb, you are right in that they are very smart. That just doesn't mean that they have to have a 80% stranglehold on the handheld market ad nauseum.

What do you mean by handheld market? Personally, I believe they'll be close to have 100% in handheld market when PSP is gone and Nintendo once again the only player on the field. If we do include mobile gaming though it's already less than 50%, and neither iPhone nor Android have anything to do with it, since the market that contributed most to this growth is Asia. Mobile gaming revenue was close to $3 billion a year before iPhone was introduced. I wonder why only now people make a big deal out of mobile gaming when it was here for quite a while? From my perspective Nintendo already did "right moves" and stayed in the game, otherwise the fast-paced growth of mobile gaming would have cannibalized them a few years ago. Instead I see market growth occuring on both sides, in mobile AND handheld gaming businesses.

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).

But think about how one deploys to said carriers.

If someone wants to sell 'Final Fantasy' on a mobile, they have to:

- Build the game
- Test it on whatever phones they want it on
- Test in on whatever OS is on the phones (or multiple OSes depending)
- Get permission from carriers/negotiate revenue shares
- Negotiate with retailers like Handango (which have horrible rev-shares)
- Launch product

Whereas with a central marketplace, some of those steps - like negotiating rev share, and getting permission from carriers are taken out of the equation. Thing like that really have an impact on costs, and availability.

Although Symbian is the largest, if you look at their statistics when it comes to ad serves, and internet statistics (metrics that can weigh in on availability of downloading games), Symbian does horrible. So I'd imagine that even though they are #1 in terms of OS penetration, their actual revenue from gaming/apps is nowhere as high. Looking at developer forums paints a similar picture - their devs aren't too happy with what is there, AFAIK.

@mai: That's because of the emerging phone markets in US and China, where people have woke up to "wonders of mobility". Basically the current discussion about the topic is something that people have had a decade ago.

Then there's the japanese market, where they had 3G networks running at the time when the 3G networks were still auctioned in the central Europe.

The smartphones will likely have the biggest impact on the laptops. Laptops as mobile computers will shrink in the same fashion as mobile phones did from the 80's to 90's.