| vivster said: Yet for some reason the PC market exists and thrives with even more different compositions of devices. How is it different to get a mobile device that can run the games you want to getting a mobile device that can run the things you want? |
How is mobile different than PC, hmm…
Well… The PC has a curated a market of consumers who will buy games anywhere from $0 free to play games, to $2, $5, $10 discounted games, to $20, $30 budget games, to $40, $50, $60 blockbuster games.
This was done by providing a proper way of filtering out a large portion of shovelware so people could find games that are worth their asking price. The Steam platform has started to faltered on this curation in the past few years and it may hurt the platform long term because of game discoverability issues.
PC’s also have standard inputs beyond a single touch screen (Mouse and keyboard) and has also curated a widely supported alternate control option (xinput: xbox360 gamepad). This allows for more depth, variety, and accuracy in gameplay. This has a greater value to players who are willing to spend more money upfront.
This all allows for developers to have larger budget games (on average) and to not have to depend on in game purchases or in game advertising as their entire revenue model.
In app purchases/advertising is actually very risky, because is only works at extremely high volumes of users. Which is why the average return on investment is so very low on iOS and Android with very little middle ground and only a handful of games taking 95% of the profits, with the remaining 5% to be divided amongst and exponentially large pool of developers.
Basically the mobile market is all or nothing, and depends on a monetization model that greatly imposes on the design of the games themselves.
Now, someone could create a cultivated market place with quality games, with standard upfront purchase prices, and standard gamepad integration. Which is exactly what the TegraZone platform is, but it never grew large enough.
So, the alternative for Nvidia is collaborating with Nintendo which has done a much better job at expanding market awareness and having health attach rates, etc.
I guess Apple or Google could take a shot at it, but they would rather just rake in their 30% on all app purchases platform wide and call it a day. Low effort, low risk, nice returns, just maintain the status quo, they are content.
