In the blink of an eye, the mobile gaming narrative has shifted from handhelds like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP to smartphones like the iPhone and a slew of Android devices. With smartphone consumers now having tens of thousands of affordable gaming titles at their disposal, long-time gaming companies like Nintendo are suffering as a result.
Back in August, Nintendo posted its first quarterly loss in two years, a result largely attributed to the rise of gaming on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Indeed, DS sales during the quarter in question dropped by over 50% while iPod Touch sales skyrocketed during the same quarter.
Feeling the heat, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata recently said he’s worried about the future of the gaming industry on account of players like Apple and Google entering the fray.
His beef? The lack of quality games and the theory that most mobile platforms focus on quantity rather than quality.
While that may have been true 2 years ago, the quality of mobile games available today is impressive. Nintendo may devote more time, money, and resources towards game development than most, and they’re understandably threatened by the rise in casual gaming, but the fact remains that gaming on iOS devices is only getting better and is having a very tangible affect on the bottom lines of companies like Nintendo and Sony.
via VentureBeat
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March 5th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
I agree with iwata on this one, even though I liked angry birds for an hour or two and plants versus zombies was ok. They are not nearly as deep as a game like the world ends with you or zelda phantom hourglass. I think he is right in saying that the thousands of cheap crap posted on the appstores kind of distracts the attention from the good games. I really hate it to search in appstores for slightly fun games that will last me an hour while on DS i can buy one good game and play it for weeks. I rather pay more for a deep experience than pay less for crap.