Microsoft computer accessories and Windows mobile are both struggling.

[mrstickball]

bdbdbd said:
@Mrstickball: I believe Xoj was talking about sales data, not estimates based on web browsing on selected sites.

Firstly, Symbian was supposed to be the standard platform for mobile devices, so the same reasoning you have for Android, goes to Symbian. What you gave as a strength for Android, concerning the carriers, is the weakness Nokia had in US market.

I agree that Symbian is a good competitor in terms of its portability from handset maker to handset maker. But I must ask you - what handset makers use Symbian? Nokia accounts for ~80% of all Symbian sales, so despite the fact that it could be an OS that can be used by any handset, only one company has strongly adopted it.

Having "only one iPhone" isn't excactly the case with iPhone for two reasons:
1. There's more than one model already.
2. Each new iPhone seems to have more powerful hardware than the earlier model. Which makes it no different than the phones running Symbian.

1. There is only 1 model for 1 service provider. Yes, there are models like the 3G and 3GS, but they only sell to one carrier in most regions, as per exclusivity contracts. iPhones are GSM-only, and are tied to exclusive carriers. So, for example, you can't buy an iPhone on Verizon or Sprint. You can't get one on T-Mobile either (but you could jailbreak it for them). Because of this, sales of the iPhone will always be tied in to what carrier offers the phone - whereas any other handset and OS isn't as tied. RIM's BlackBerry is the only phone they sale, but they have BB's on virtually every carrier.

Every downside you can think with Symbian goes with Android as well.

Very true. However, Android does have the advantage of having more handset manufacturers making devices than Symbian does. As I stated earlier, Symbian has 80% of its market share thanks to Nokia, and 20% from everyone else. That is compared to WinMo and Android, which are a bit more varied.

If you don't want to program your games directly to hardware, you can use flash or Java instead, which makes differences in hardware less visible for the developer.

The mobile phone gaming have existed a long time, where you could download the game from the carrier or directly from the publisher. N-Gage wasn't made because Nokia inventing mobile phone gaming with it, but because people were playing games with their mobile phones. And the cheapo-phones do run 2D games.
The centralised marketplace is a new feature, but we are going to have marketplaces by manufacturer, instead of marketplaces by OS, which you were hinting with Android, which leaves iPhone OS as the only OS with centralised marketplace.

Not quite. There is one, and only one Android market place for the ~15 phones that run Android. If a phone does not meet the developer's requirement for hardware, then the game doesn't show up. Otherwise, its the same market place for everyone. I'd suggest you take a look at an Android phone and the content on it. The market is quite robust for every phone.

With all this, i'm not saying that mobile phone gaming wouldn't have its place or it would cease to exist, just that the current growth rate isn't going to continue and it isn't going to end devices like DS or PSP.
The biggest reasons for growth in mobile phone gaming have been the phones capable of playing games becoming more affordable, new entrants in the market and developers waking for mobile phones. But the developer situation isn't any different from the rest of the gaming market, where's growth, there's developers after easy money with their "LOL, casual games" (cheap shovelware) just before getting burned after someone releasing a killer-app, such as a fart simulator. Then the developers choose a new platform to molest after seeing some growth there.

But we come to the question of 'when does the market mature?' most analysts believe the market has a long, LONG ways to go before it maturates and begins to see growth merely tied in to whatever the penetration rate of mobile phones are. There will always be market failures, and the mobile gaming market can and will see those. However, growth will continue at a rate that will entice developers to keep dev'ing for mobiles for quite some time. By 2015, mobile phone gaming is projected to be a $15 billion market. I wonder how close that'll be to what handheld console software sales.

The situation between handheld games devices and smartphones is similar to consoles and PC's. There's a lot bigger audience playing browser based flash games than there is playing games on a videogame console. PC's can even offer you comparable of better gaming experience than a console, but still what were looking here, at this very site, is, how the consoles are doing software- and hardwarewise on the market against each other and the sales are pretty good.

Ah, but there is enough similarity between a smartphone and a handheld console that it'd be very hard to make the distinction between a gaming device and a mobile phone. With consoles/PCs, you don't have that distinction. Both are radically different in their approach to gaming. Whereas my HTC Magic is very similar in form to my Nintendo DS.

nokia still selling the same. over 400 million phones over 80 millions are smartphones.

http://isopixcell.com/2009/09/10/los-10-celularess-mas-vendidos-de-krussell-en-julio-de-2009./

there newer but i dont see nokia falling behind in anything.

RIM and apple have managed to increase sales, but even if u put android iphone and blackberry together u don't pass nokia even only the smartphones.

Ah, but that is the key. Nokia is selling the same, while everyone else is selling more. I never mentioned sales, only market share =)