In Apple, Nintendo's New Console Faces a Powerful Foe

[S.Peelman]

spurgeonryan said:

S.Peelman said:
(..)

How many copies of Angry Birds have been downloaded? 50-100 million? You hear the name everywhere, see the commercials and merchandise, etc. I am sure that it did get many gamers and casual gamers to purchase a tablet or other mobile device. Just like Wii sports got people to purchase a wii in the beginning. I will admit that Angry birds is a lot of fun. But other games that I have downloaded have been a big waste of time.

I can't and won't deny that Angy Bird has been extremely succesful. I would argue however, that 90% of those millions of downloads were made on the days the game was free, so many people basically thought: "Why not?". Also, while other games on mobile devices have been succesful, to my knowledge none of them ever came close to being downloaded this many times, or enjoyed the same popularity. This makes Angry Birds a rarity. I doubt there are lot of people that buy a tablet just because Angry Birds is on there.

Sure it's fun, for a few hours. I played it, I also thought it was fun. For 2 hours. I don't think a platform that almost exclusively has minigames will be able to replace a platform dedicated to 'real' games. People mostly buy a tablet for all the other functions; the internet, multimedia purposes and the billions of apps that can be purchased for basically everything imaginable. Small 'game-apps' that cost next to nothing are added bonus.

I agree that the game-apps probably helped the tablet's popularity with non- or casual-gamers, but these people probably weren't going to buy a 3DS or Vita anyway. Only when Nintendo or Sony decides to also offer these game-apps (I know they've got some, but it's only a handful) on their systems do they become competitors with tablets.

People who want to play games for the gaming experience, do not decide between an iPad or a 3DS. It's 'And', not 'Or', in this case.

But that's my view. And who am I? ;).