Sony and Nintendo suffer at the hands of Apple's iPod Touch, iPhone

[Matthew DeCarlo]

In addition to being blockbusters in their respective categories, Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch have put a hurting on Nintendo and Sony in the portable gaming market, according to Flurry. In 2008, Cupertino controlled some 5% of portable game revenue with $115 million in sales, and a year later, that figure ballooned to 19% with about $500 million worth of games sold. In that same duration, Flurry estimates that the PSP's revenue share fell from 20% to 11%, and the DS went from 75% to 70%.

Last year, Michael Pachter labeled Apple's iPod Touch "the most dangerous thing that ever happened" to game publishers. After all, with more than 30,000 games (and growing) in the App Store, the iPhone and iPod Touch make it easy to leave other single-purpose devices at home. Despite its limited popularity, the iPad is selling relatively well and will only help Apple's performance in the segment. How will Sony and Nintendo respond to Apple's products and sudden presence in the market?

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/38329-sony-and-nintendo-suffer-at-the-hands-of-apples-ipod-touch-iphone.html

 

[IamBD]

Its more of a casual gaming device with cheap quick games on it. That will always get more sales, but not better quality though.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

I'd like to see Nintendo add more personal organizer features to the next DS.

 

[tengeta]

Thats really sad, and thats the problem with the "apps" structure. Its going to turn computing into the itunes store... DLC for games was free at first now you pay the games price twice over in map packs, the app stores will slowly lose free apps and start charging $1-5 bucks minimum for just the crappy ones. Lets just never develop browsers, any sdk's, or any possible way to use a cell phone without adding to the bill. I guess no one cares when "its totally awesome dude i'm updating my twitter in class and checking out three chicks around me on facebook".

 

[Relic]

While it is a casual gaming device with the majority of games on it being of low quality it still is popular. Look at facebooks Farmville which is the most popular game with 82 million active users. I personally don't play nor care for these games whatsoever as they don't appeal to me at all, but they do to A LOT of others out there and a lot of money is being made. Apples huge selection gives them a great advantage on top of there micro-transactions. This is definitely a danger to both, but I feel Sony has far more to worry about then Nintendo. All this casualness worries me =| and I hope Apple doesn't get into serious gaming as I feel this would not benefit us gamers in the long run.

@Tengeta: Ya DLC is bull in its new form...I remember when DLC started coming out and reading that games would be cheaper initially (~$30) but be supported by DLC. Now you have titles like MW2 at $60 on all platforms charging another $15 for DLC.

 

[megrawab]

No doubt.. Apple's iPhone is multi-functional. People would rather stand on one gadget that can almost have it all than having a lot of gadgets with different different usage ... Watta big decrease for PSP...

 

[Richy2k9]

hello ...

it's normal, yet with the fact that almost every year there's a new model out with better features it will boost the presence of such devices, mostly with young ones.

yet those who would go for PSP or DS games are those already owning the consoles, it's harder to get new customers when the competition is hard & there's a financial crisis.

I think SONY & Nintendo should continue with HQ Exclusives so they can maintain at least a good market share, even if they are not leaders.

cheers!

 

[thebluemeaner]

OH NO, Nintendo went from being almost monopolistic to being a little less monopolistic in that market...Seriously, I didn't know the DS dominated the portable market to that extent...

 

[Vrmithrax]

Another example of companies throwing statistics out that really have zero relevance. If you think about the comparisons, there's a huge component missing in the qualification of whether the Apple games "hurt" Sony and Nintendo. The iPhone and iPod Touch allow people who bought the hardware for other purposes (i.e. phone or music) to just casually throw a game app or 2 on for fun. It's a great quick accessible perk. But, how many of those who purchased apps there even HAVE a dedicated portable gaming device? Or, how many of those people would ever even consider buying one? If those consumers don't fit into the "own or want to buy a gaming platform" demographic, then their numbers mean nothing when it comes to effect on Sony or Nintendo. The true gamers know that the dedicated devices have more solid controls and depth, and those people will generally choose a dedicated device - and, coincidentally, those people are Sony and Nintendo's target market, not the casual Apple consumer.

Besides, just crunch the numbers (which is something outfits like Flurry will never do, it's not sensational enough). Completely factor out the apps in the equation, and the Sony and Nintendo market shares and total revenue stay roughly the same, with a small growth factor for Nintendo and a loss for Sony (which only makes sense with their ridiculous PSP Go marketing fiasco). They didn't "suffer at the hands of Apple" as the article would like you to believe. The app market grew. Period. And, isn't it a coincidence that Flurry's focus is primarily cell and mobile technology? Skewed perspective much?

 

[Guest]

How is this hurting Sony and Nintendo? Did their revenues actually fall, or were the iPhone game sales mostly going to a different group of people?

The diagram on this page only tells me that people now buy games on the iPhone, it does not tell me anything about the other companies.

 

[natefalk]

If you think Apple is taking a large market share... Wait until Windows Mobile 7. Since they are releasing the dev software to everyone, Mobile Apps are going to be a large part of the market share.

Although I don't know if this article means more people are buying games or the people who already buy games are buying more iPhone apps than PSP/DS games or both...?

Most of the games on the App store are very simple and can't even compare to the value of PSP/DS games.

 

[bigclick]

Its normal for the shift from one device to another, but the hard core game playing kids still want more than an app for that. Farmville... how can you take a game seriously when the server goes down, which it does. Sony is doing quite well for itself. This is temporary.

 

[compdata]

I am all for a multi purpose device for gaming, taking pictures, making calls, organizing myself, listening to music, etc. . Why do i want multiple devices that i have to charge, lug around, pay to upgrade, etc. . So i totally see this trend continuing. Will be interested to see if Android can catch-up/make the list soon as well.

 

[Guest]

I think this is hurting Sony only. Both apple and nintendo's revenues have risen.

Given the percentages and totals given in the charts and story, if w look at the overall portable game market for these three companies, we see the following for yearly revenue in 2008 and 2009:

2300 = total portable game market in 2008
115 million = iphone
460 million = sony
1725 million = nintendo

2632 million = total protable game market 2009
500 million = iphone
290 million = sony
1842 million = nintendo


Yes, apple has increased, but Nintendo and the overall market have as well.

if we look closer at these numbers, while apple seems to be growing faster than nintendo, we see that the growth of the market is almost the whole difference between apple's revenue in 2008 and 2009 (off by under 50 million).

based on this, it would appear that apple may be bringing in their own users to the gaming market rather than siphoning off existing users.

As for sony, it could also be theorized that since nintendo's revenue had grown almost as much as sony's had fallen, perhaps nintendo is taking away sony's market.

Granted, tehre is not enough data provided to make any final determinations other than sony is doing worse and nintendo and apple are doing better in the mobile gaming market, but clearly the title and article are at best misleading, and at worst completely rubbish.

 

[levar]

heh I wander what its gonna look like in 2010, thats a shame though SONY has been doing anything as far as going against the ipod/touch Sony's next handheld device better be touch screen.

 

[TomSEA]

Vrmithrax nailed it perfectly.

 

[MrAnderson]

Tekkaraiden said:
I'd like to see Nintendo add more personal organizer features to the next DS.

I agree, adding personal organizer would make the DS even more attractive. It is getting to a point where the device will need to do a little bit more gaming.

I might agree that Apple has garnered some of the casual adult market away from the 2 major players in the handheld market. Nevertheless, no real gamer is going to only have their mitts on just an iTouch/iPhone.

And what is with the talk about the iPad as if it is already in major circulation? Some articles are naming it in action as if it is already in play. I know developers are preparing software, but please... the darn thing is hardly out the door in spite of pre-orders... we do not have any actual consumers using it in mass so I would appreciate writer stop talking about it as if it were so.

 

[Guest]

Nintendo will survive because they also develop games, which I desperately wish they would show all these newbs how its done on the iphone. Sony is screwed, all they have is outdated hardware.