Soundwave said:
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. |
While your point initially seems like a good one, I think you're looking at it wrong.
There are obviously more people interested in non-gaming while travelling than travelling. There are also most likely more people doing slight bits of gaming on the Iphone than there ever will be people in the handheld market. However, that doesn't mean that
A) There's much of an interest - or profit - in the phone market from high-profile game makers
Or that
B) That the handheld market has to decrease in size.
A) should be fairly obvious, but I'll explain it anyway. People don't spend money on apps on their smartphones. The average spending on apps a year is 3 dollars. I don't have any actual statistics for how much of that is on gaming, but the Business Insider article I have it from (http://read.bi/Vbludj ) suggests that it's roughly two thirds of the total. So 2 dollars a year.
You won't see high profile games on the smartphones, simply because people don't spend enough money on them. This might change in the future, but there's also a large chance it won't. The smartphone gaming market is still very small compared to the regular one.
B) is partly derived from A, and partly independant.
The smartphone vs handheld competition is very similar to the Wii vs HD consoles one. The Wii expanded the market to the side of the undedicated gamer, but the HD consoles didn't suffer. The Ps360 is looking to sell as much - if not more than - the PS2+XBox.
Similarly, the smartphones are dragging new people into gaming. But that doesn't mean they're stealing the handheld gamers any more than the Wii did the PS360 ones.
You could also draw an analogy to piracy here. The people who commit piracy are, interestingly, usually the ones who also spend the most on gaming (or films, or music, if that's what they're pirating). They use piracy for the games they wouldn't spend their money on, but spend their money on the games they feel are worth their money. I'm not saying I agree with the logic, but that seems to be how it is.
The same applies for the smartphones. People happily play free games on their Iphone - 89% of all app downloads are free, so the vast majority of games should be as well - but that doesn't mean they're not willing to pay for the other games.
While your argument makes logically sense, it goes against history on these subjects. All-around products, or broader-appeal products rarely eliminate or heavily damage the dedicated ones.
