New stats show Mobile gaming is slaughtering handheld consoles!

[mrstickball]

bobgamez said:

Yakuzaice said:

Why do you tell people to look at the raw numbers, then say to ignore them when they don't support your position?

Going by the numbers in the OP, DS software revenue has dropped from $1.842 billion in 2009 to $1.341 billion in 2010 to $1.179 billion in 2011.  If we look at worldwide DS software shipments for the first three quarters of the year, they have dropped from 104.68 million in 2009 to 85.06 million in 2010 to 50.98 million in 2011.  The 3DS has contributed 17.56 million this year.  This is down from a peak of 123.76 million in the first three quarters of 2008.

You seem to be making some big assumptions based on a single survey on playtime while ignoring the drops in hardware and software sales.  I don't think dedicated handheld gaming will die, but I really can't see it coming close to the last generation.  Actually this made me realize something.  The only games I saw kids playing at thanksgiving this year were on their parents smartphones.  Nintendo and Sony are going to have a harder time breaking in when the first games a lot of kids will play will be on smartphones.

The DS in 2008 was the best year for any console period, and I don't expect the 3DS to beat it at all this year. In fact, I expect to sell 15 to 20 million a year after this, like the GBA. Not all systems are the best selling system of all time. and to expect that it would be insane

That may be the way to look at one console, but not the market.

In a market with only two handhelds - from Sony and Nintendo - hardware sales SHOULD break records with each successive release. Otherwise, the market is contracting or stagnant. Last gen for handhelds saw upwards of 200 million consoles sold. If 5 years from now we see both consoles ploddering through 100 million, then it should be obvious that the market contracted.

From there, we have to ask why the market contracted and look at possible options. The two answers would be that consumers are no longer interested in handheld gaming, or something stole their market share. I think at that point, we would know definitively which one of the two is the answer.

If you look at what has happened in the opening phases of next-gen handhelds, they've been an abysmal failure. The 3DS was killed at market forcing a huge price drop by Nintendo. It is selling better now, but still not earth-shattering numbers. This is a very telling scenario regarding consumer interest in next-gen handhelds.

Right now, to me, it is as I predicted well over a year ago: mobiles are swallowing up traditional handheld market share. This will continue to play out as both Nintendo and Sony fail to meet hardware expectations. As this continues, developers will pull support further and further to the mobile side until few titles are pushed outside of regional fare and 1st party IPs. Again, this is because mobile gaming has a user base that is far in excess of handhelds. There are more copies of Angry Birds out there generating revenue than there are DS, 3DS and PSP consoles in existence. That should tell you where consumers are placing interest.