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Soundwave on 19 December 2012
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cusman said:
Pineapple said:

It's going to be the weakest handheld year since the 2005.

2005: 20.6 million (DS 10.6 million, PsP 9 million). Likely to be a bit higher due to the GBA still selling a bit.

2006: 30 million (DS 20.5 million, PsP 9.5 million)

2007: 42 million (DS 29.5 million, PsP 12.8 million)

2008: 44 million (DS 29.5 million, PsP 13 million)

2009: 37 million (DS 27 million, PsP 9 million)

2010: 30 million (DS 21 million, PsP 9 million)

2011: 30 million (3DS 13.25 million, DS 9 million, PsP 7 million, Vita 0.5 million)

2012: 20 million (3DS 11 million, DS 3 million, PsP 3 million, Vita 3 million). Plus whatever they sell the next few weeks.

 

In other words, the handheld market is the weakest it has been since the DS launched. Considering 2005 lacks GBA sales, it's likely 2005 was actually higher than 2012.

 

However, the reason for the drop isn't necessarily smartphones. The total revenue for smartphone games is at just 2 billion dollars a year, while the handheld market is still well above 10 billion.

It's less that the smartphones have stolen the market, and more that the 3DS simply doesn't have the appeal of the DS, and the Vita is nowhere near the appeal of the PsP.

The decrease is due to internal problems, rather than external. Which means there's still plenty of time to turn it around.

I think the problem is simply economy or shift in median age of people or something along those lines leading to less money available to spend on dedicated portable gaming. Could also simply be that people are still content to be playing their DS with the strong software support. Could also be that home console gaming is just so vastly better now that...

Could be time/money eaten up by the SmartPhone adoptions but I think that is least likely here... I mean honestly who games on the SmartPhones as the norm? No... the buttons and controls are needed to have the best "feeling" games. Just touch and gyro alone are not enough for any of the deeper game designs.


I think what's hard for some people to understand is most people really don't care about having a full blown console style experience in a handheld game. 

It's like going into a McDonalds and complaining there isn't a steak dinner on the menu. That's not what people want when they go to a fast food joint. 

On the road, most people are quite happy with smartphones eating up all their free time, not just with simple games, but you can browse the internet, Twitter, Instagram, text message, watch some TV episodes, and maybe play a little Angry Birds or Cut the Rope. 

If they want to play a "serious" game for a lot of people ... that's what their home console is for. Most people aren't so addicted to gaming that they can't go a few hours away from their home console to get their gaming fix, lol. 

The difference was in the past, you really didn't have these options. If you wanted any entertainment on the go, basically your choice was playing games on a Game Boy/PSP/DS or carrying around a music-focused iPod (or before that, gasp, a Discman or Walkman). Your cell phone maybe played a crappy version of Tetris at best or Snake. 

Different times. You may care about having a proper d-pad/analog/buttons to play games away from the house. Most people don't. Most people don't have like 30+ minutes of free time to sit uniterrupted playing a video game when they leave the house anyway.