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HappySqurriel on 27 January 2011
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Grimes said:
HappySqurriel said:
Grimes said:

The iPhone 5, iPad, and next generation of Android phones and tablets will win. Software wise I will give the edge to the iPhone because piracy is too big on Android.


For total number of units sold, software on the iPlatform will probably dominate ... but the revenue and profits of producing a 3DS or PSP2 game will dwarf the iPlatform games for the foreseeable future. The reason for this is simple, the average iPlatform game costs $1.66 (from source I checked out on google) while the 3DS games will be $40 and PSP2 games might end up being $60; and while iPlatform games can charge $5 or $10 per title, these games (even at their much lower price) tend not to sell as well as a typical handheld console game.

Yeah, but a lot of developers are switching their good programmers onto the mobile development teams. The rate of growth on these handsets is growing like gangbusters and as consumers become accustomed to buying software the revenue will grow.


Honestly, I don't ever see $10 applications being particularly popular on these handsets; and (unless China, India and Africa buy into these phones rapidly) it will take decades for sales on individual games at these prices to match the revenue of handheld gaming systems.

I know a handful of people working at "shovelware" developers who release games for portable devices and the PC; and (right now) most projects that are exclusive to smart phones are being heavily subsidized in order to create a market, even with how low budget these games are (often a fraction of the development costs of a Nintendo DS game). From what I have been told, most of their games that sell for $0.99 or $1.99 on iTunes are also being sold for $10 to $20 on popcapgames.com or steam; and the number of units sold are similar on both. They have no ability to increase their price because every game they're selling soon has a dozen clones that are free or selling for $0.99 on the iPhone.

You might see the occassional large publisher push a big budget iPhone game at $20, but I'm expecting every last one of those games will disappoint their publisher for the next 5 years (at least).