Yes, but the iPhone isn't a gaming machine. I'd bet at least half, and probably more like 3/4 of the people who buy the iPhone will never buy a 30 dollar game for it. 99.9 percent of DS users game on their DS at least once. It's like saying PC is blowing the the consoles out of the water as a gaming device because 2 million soccer moms a week buy laptops that couldn't run Diablo II.

You can't directly compare them as GAMING DEVICES, in userbase, or sales pace.

So, basically, this thread is just stating a little pro-DS factoid, that the Nintendo DS is managing to match or outsell the SECOND most popular entertainment device in the USA on a weekly basis, and is blowing it out of the water worldwide.

Also, this thread has to add the whole "i" faimly to catch the DS, not just the iPhone.

IPhone is to handhelds what the PC is to consoles.

Except PC/Laptop sales are far far in excess of consoles,... while iPhone is "just" selling a tad more than the best selling handheld.

But the DS has lots of awesome games that the Iphone doesn´t.

1. I thought the main criteria for being a gaming machine would be, (A) be a machine and, (B) run games. Too obvious?

2. I'd bet that 100% of iPhone users will never buy a $30 game. The whole point of the platform is digital distribution. I don't think anybody will ever try to sell a game for $30 on the App Store.

3. They run the same software. Adding iPhone and iPod touch together is like adding the DS Lite and the DSi together, except there actually are games for DSi which won't run on a DS Lite.

As for the rest of your post, untwist your knickers. The point of this thread isn't to gloat about how another device is outselling the DS. The point is to show that a new portable device which has demonstrated a huge potential for selling software is increasing its install base at a breakneck pace. There's a reason why developers like Sega, Square, and Konami are showing more and more interest in the platform. Any developer making games for the iPhone isn't making them for the DS (unless it's a multiplat, not outside the realm of possibility at all).

@TWRoO

Smartphones are a rapidly growing market, and Apple's competitors are moving to emulate the iPhone with touch screens and app stores of their own. I think you'll find that in a few years, Apple and Nintendo will be seriously competing for people's limited pocket space.

well.. apparently nintendo thought so, or else they wouldn't have released the DS 6 months earlier than they wanted to...

And the psp was apparently keeping up, until the DS lite was released.

They are coming out with a premium game section for the app store that will have $20 games (full length games like a regular handheld).

But on topic the iPhone and the app store is expanding like crazy but its a different beast than traditional handheld gaming. There are great games that sell for $1-2 and there are awesome $5-10 games as well, its great for indie developers and awesome for the consumers. A lot of "gamers" get anxious when a new thing like this happens and is popular but that dosn't matter - this means more good games and some really original ones with new and different experiences, i'm loving it.

The DS game software market is 538m $35 games through December 31, 2008

The Iphone Application market is ~1 billion apps, many to most of which are not games and cost $1 or less.

As far as I can tell the money is split something like this:

DS SW Market through 3/31/2009 ~560m * $35 or about $19.6b

Nintendo games ~ 250m * $35

Third Party games ~ 310m * $35  about $10.85b

Of that $10.85b, maybe a third goes to Nintendo, which leaves DS third party revenues at ~$7.3b. DS has been out for 4.5 years, so that averages out to about $1.65b in revenue for third parties per year. If DS, over its liftime had maybe 500 third party titles on shelves worldwide per year, and if all titles were equally purchased, they'd each get about $32.08m which at $35 is 92,000 copies. Since most DS games probably cost less than $3-5m to make its a good model for established companies.

For the Iphone, we have say 500 million games now, in something like a year. If they each cost on average $2, and Apple publishes no games, then the market for Iphone games is $1b already. The trick is that Apple does get some of the money, so its probably only $700m for third parties or something.

Iphone has more games than DS does already, and therefore fewer "hit" caliber titles - but since you can make a game by yourself, it will continue to be flooded with games, because even selling 20,000 $2 games over a month is pretty good when your the only force behind the game.

Where it gets interesting is with the PSP. Sony announced in January that LTD PSP software sales were 200m. At $40 a pop, that is about $8b in available PSP revenue.

Sony probably has a third of that ~67m * $40 or $2.67b

That leaves $5.33b for third parties. Sony probably gets a quarter of that in liscencing fees. So you have $4b in PSP third party revenues. PSP has been out for 4.5 years as well, so that averages out to about $889m in revenue per year available for third parties. There are maybe 400 PSP games. If all 400 titles were equally purchased, and on shelves over the period they'd each get about $22.22m which at a price of $40 is 55,555 copies.

Essentially it comes down to this for third parties:

                                                     DS                        Iphone                  PSP

Base                                             102m                     ?                         47m

SW                                                560m                    500m                   210m

SW $                                           ~ $35                     ~$2                     ~$40

Rev/Game ("3rd parties")             ~$23                    ~$1.40                 ~$30

Dev Cost Avg(Pulled from my ass)  $0.5m-$2m            ~$1000+?              $1m-$4m

Units to Break Even " "                ~55,000+?             ~500+ ?             ~83,000+?

Titles Competitng for Rev              500?                     1000?                    400?            

Third Party Revenue Pie/year       $1.7b                    $0.7b                       $0.89m

Trend of 3rd Party Pie WW           Slowly Up            Quickly Up                 Slowly down          

The PSP and DS games earn more cash per unit, but cost more to make so it makes sense for big companies (Sega, Capcom, EA, etc) looking for big hits to support those platforms.  DS has far more million seller games on it than the PSP does, due to its base and less rampant piracy so it will continue to see more support. The recent upswing in PSP support seems to be either the last major push for the system or the initial push for the PSP Go/PSP2. For medium developers (Majesco, Koei), I would say its pretty close between DS and Iphone for which is more profitable right now, and for small to tiny developers Iphone is the best.

I bet you could say the same about many cell phones.

Finding a good game on the iPhone

Priceless

The thing that stands out to me in all of the Iphone talk is the amount of spin involved. We get lots of aggregate numbers but nobody is willing to come out and say "we sold X copies of Y." Until that happens I am going to assume that big projects just won't work very well on the platform. It is great for smaller or indie work, and great for consumers to have choices, but owning an Iphone is not going to be a reason not to own a DS or a PSP.