The iPhone will damage the handheld market for everyone and this is why

[Mr Khan]

kitler53 said:

hunter_alien said:

 

Tough I agree with most of your rant, the truth is that there is a 70 million market even for the PSP. Yes the Iphone might hinder the handheld sales, but there will always be a market for, dar I say, more professionaly handheld systems.

 

The question is: will we see any more 200million sales/generation, or more like 100-150 million. Either way, there still is and will be a market for SOny and Nintendo ( myabe even MS) portables.

psp is at 70 million, IOS is at 160 million.  i know, i know -- "people could have bought multiple devices".   true but you can say the same thing about the DS or the psp.   ...and IOs is up YoY.   i can't find a solid number on android but from what i understand the combined total of all android devices is even larger.  This is from a year ago but apparently the number of mobile phones (not just smartphones) has surpased 4.6 billion.  the sales potential difference is huge.

but anyways, i tried to chose my words carefully when i said "trending away from importance".  Nintendo/Sony won't be booted out of the handheld market overnight.   but remember, 5 years ago apple didn't exist in gaming.  today we're debating their relative importance to nintnedo/sony.  5 years from now i wouldn't be surprised to find apple much more important than nintnedo or sony.

to the dedicated device thing.  maybe.  i mean, there still are people that use film cameras.  not many but they do exist.  but the thing is ... someone has to make that device. if the money in dedicated gaming devices dries up so will the hardware and software providers.   because of the software dependence on the usefulness a dedicated gaming device -- i'm not so sure gaming can really support a niche market like other technologies can.  remember, when you say "professional" you really mean "expensive". 

I'll disagree with this by citing the Neo Geo, which was clearly built as an enthusiast device and priced waaaay out of the range of most consumers (and this was in 1990s dollars), but managed to live happily until about 1996 or so, and SNK intended it to be a niche device

Gaming could survive well enough as a stagnant enthusiast market, so long as the gaming companies were willing to play within the rules of such markets (i.e. a focus on profit)