In the past few months, I have found myself spending more and more time on my iPhone playing these simple yet addicting games. Looking at how the iPhone has evolved from first gen, to the iPhone 3G, and now the iPhone 3GS, as well as see how the games have evolve along the way — I can’t stop but wonder if iPhone has finally become a legitimate gaming platform. First let’s applaud Apple has finally come around and realize gaming is a market should not be ignored (we all know how crappy the Macs are for gaming). Anyway, if it has, where does the future hold for iPhone? I am going to geek out my old consulting habit… and let’s have a look:
The Market:
- 14 millions iPhones were sold in 2008, and estimated 24M iPhones will be sold in 2009 (5.2M iPhones were sold in Q209 alone).
- During the first year of AppStore, over 10,000 games have been developed, which is about 18% of all apps developed for the iPhone.
Competition:
It’s obvious iPhone already dominates the mobile gaming market, so let’s just skip that. How will iPhone impact the handheld market (primarily Nintendo DS and PSP)? A couple of weeks ago, Nintendo announced their profit slid 66% in last quarter. Specifically, this was the most interesting quote in the announcement:
“But Nintendo expects its profit to fall for the first time in four years in the current year to March 2010 as the Wii’s momentum slows and the company faces increased competition in the handheld business from Apple Inc’s iPhone.”
Let’s take a look at some sales data:
| Year | Units Sold | YOY Growth |
| 2007 | 4M | - |
| 2008 | 14M | 250% |
| 2009* | 24M | 71.4% |
| Year | Units Sold | YOY Growth |
| 2005 | 11.59M | - |
| 2006 | 21.18M | 82.7% |
| 2007 | 29.18M | 37.8% |
| 2008 | 31.43M | 7.8% |
| 2009* | 30M | -4.5% |
The huge drop in growth in 2007, 2008, and 2009* are probably not coincidental to the growth of iPhone in the same period. Just saying.
* 2009 sales data are estimated based on past performance.
The Future:
The iPhone 3GS no doubt lay down the ground work for its future in gaming. Primarily:
- Head-to-head and over-the-network gaming will become more widespread thanks to a new peer-to-peer app feature in the iPhone 3.0 software.
- In-game commerce, which will not only make games more interesting — buy a new house for your Sims, or a new toy for your virtual pet — but will also make the iPhone economy more interesting. This will allow iPhone gaming companies to grow revenues after the point of sale; an important feature.
What should you expect to see? Well, I expect simple games designed for quick entertainment to continue to grow, but more and more sophisticated games with great story lines will also rise as major developers enter the market (EA, Ubisoft, etc). I also expect to see more and more multiplayer games to pop up, perhaps even a popular MMO. The future of iPhone gaming shines brightly.
[...] You could call this Take 57 of the “major game brands invade the iPhone” movie. We’ll see if Rockstar, a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive, can crack the code and stand out among the iPhone’s apps, currently at 83,653. Of the apps, 16,482 are games, according to Mobclix. Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto IV was one of the best-selling games of all time, but it hasn’t yet made an appearance on Apple’s hot-selling platform. The arrival of Rockstar on the iPhone is a milestone for Apple, which has created the hottest game platform. [...]
great view!!! I think the same
Awesome post! I recieved alot of money for the holidays and I think I want to purchase this. Your wrote a awesome post, absolutely the best I have seen so far. I will be looking forward to your next blog post. thanks again.
Thanks for taking the top out to write this nice post.
Thats absolutely an awesome gadget to get in my collection. Does anybody have aclue where I can purchase it? Any guidance?
Many thanks for the informative post