Pushmo's success compared to Gunman Clive

[noname2200]

famousringo said:

noname2200 said:

sethnintendo said:
Pushmo has to have sold pretty damn well. I'm just surprised Gunman Clive outsold Android and iOS. Probably in a few months it will outsold both combined. Smartphone gaming is the end of dedicated hand helds? Yea right.. How about porting all the good smartphone games over to a dedicated hand held that has physical buttons and can be appreciated more.

I'd argue not charging 300%-900% more for the eShop version may also have played a role.

Low price helps. Competing with... what?... less than a hundred other games rather than thousands is probably the biggest factor. It also helps that you know customers with a handheld console aren't shy about paying for games. You're going straight to the premium customers.

But let's not kid ourselves about the health of handheld gaming. There's some life there, but Dec 2012 sold 5.4 million handhelds, a sharp decline from 6.9 million sold in Dec 2011.

I place the onus on that decline primarily on the lack of compelling software. The biggest hitter in the West this holiday season (for both systems) was a Paper Mario game. By contrast, Japan's handhelds are holding up just fine, notwithstanding that they've had a stronger mobile presence for at least half a decade before the West ever did.

I expect this fortune to begin reversal this year, as good software finally begins to leave Japan. I don't expect this generation to hit the heights of the prior one, largely due to bad decisions by both hardware makers (especially Sony), but if there's yet another decline this year I'll eat a juicy hamburger as punishment.