iPhone sales continue to grow around the world

[famousringo]

mrstickball said:

famousringo said:
Oh, and I forgot to mention that, according to NPD, the iTunes music store now has 25% of all music sales in the US, and 69% of all online music sales.

And I wouldn't call the iPhone a DS killer, but I do wonder if Iwata is going to start being more reluctant to show his off.

I don't think the iPhone is a DS killer, but the rise of the Smartphone is. And 10 years from now, they will be the DS2 killer.

I, along with a few other VGC-ers are working on producing market reports for smartphone gaming in the near future. It's a very interesting market, and it's growing at a frantic pace. The iPhone gaming market is larger than any of the consoles' downloadable gaming services (XBLA, PSN, WiiWare/VC), and it's done it in a matter of 1 year. Thats just 1 service among 3 phones that share a tiny sliver of the mobile phone market. The overall phone market download service (that's games, apps, ringtones, and other such things) is valuated at >$100 billion USD - twice that of gaming.

For example, The Sims 3 has become a million-selling game on the iPhone in just 1 month. That's very indicative of the power smartphones have. As phones become more de-balkanized with fewer operating systems (with OSX, Android, Symbian, WinMo and RIM being major players), we'll see more and more gaming sales, as phones have easier one-shot solutions that developers can back more commonly. 

I argue with TheSource about it all the time on IM. I'm a firm believer in the fact that smartphones will rival handhelds in both marketshare and revenue in 10 years - kind of in the same way we see PC and consoles fighting (as well as consoles/PCs fighting portable devices like the DS/PSP and laptop/netbooks).

At least for myself, I find using my phone for gaming a bit more convenient than my DS, because I always have my phone on me. The games have similar graphical qualities. Once the market matures, and we see bigger better games, it's going to be a great market to buy games on.

The PC vs. console comparison is apt, but I think handheld vs. smartphone could be even more intense. It's easy to have a PC in your office and a console in your living room, but it's a little silly to have a phone in one pocket and a handheld in the other.

That phone download market is sickeningly huge. I'll bet half of it is ringtones, too. I find the idea of paid ringtones extremely baffling, but money is where you find a market.

I'm especially glad that Apple is proving ditigal distribution to be not just viable, but extremely lucrative. There are so many resources to be saved if people can just be convinced to let go of their physical artifacts. And publishers of all kinds of content could save a lot in costs if they weren't so terrified of changing their business model.