I thought referring to the well known body design of the N9 with the WP7-based qualifier was more clear than calling it the Lumia 800 at this point. I can switch to Nokia Lumia.
Fair enough, for this forum it probably doesn't matter, as ignorance for anything non-Apple abounds. But I frequent places on the internet where people would see red if you confuse the N9 with Elop's body-snatcher.
Console and portable games have become so expensive nowadays, and in most cases, I do not even beat the games because I did not enjoy them enough to warrant my time. I like dumping $4.99 on Scribblenauts Remix for iPhone rather than $30 for the Nintendo DS versions.
iPhone games are so much cheaper than their portable console counterparts. If I did not enjoy them, then I am only out 99 cents - $4.99 rather than $60.
If they're spending that much on support it may be time for them to switch cross-platform frameworks.
What are they currently using?
Unity if I remember though they had tried MonoTouch (not too bad but limited functionality and poor Novel support) and a few others. The biggest issue were frame rate tweaks and jitters on the various 100+ Android handsets that always cropped up. So iOS had 8 test beds. Android >100 and they always found things between different versions of Android and different GPU chip sets just enough different to require additional work.
That would be killer. The prices of Mario Kart, etc. would likely be $19.99 however.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Negafox
Console and portable games have become so expensive nowadays, and in most cases, I do not even beat the games because I did not enjoy them enough to warrant my time. I like dumping $4.99 on Scribblenauts Remix for iPhone rather than $30 for the Nintendo DS versions.
iPhone games are so much cheaper than their portable console counterparts. If I did not enjoy them, then I am only out 99 cents - $4.99 rather than $60.
Both of these post hit the nail on the head. Nintendo and Sony games are simply way too expensive...
The other point is that both the 3DS and the upcoming Vita use dead media... Even if the games were identically priced, the ability to push a single game to all of my devices instantly is a feature that neither Nintendo or Sony can compete against. I just purchased Whale Trail on my iPhone for my kids and within minutes it was on my iPad and iPod Touch. All three of my boys were playing the same game.... How can Sony and Nintendo compete against that??
And do you have anything to back that up besides pure speculation?
Well at the beginning of the year, iSuppli reported Android Market nearly tied with Nokia Ovi at $102/105 million in annual revenues, behind BlackBerry with $165 million in app market revenues, while Apple raked in $1,782 million.
Some large percentage of those app titles are games, but it's pretty clear that Apple is the single leader in app revenues with +80 percent of all global mobile app revenue. And Google was not in second place.
So Flurry published a horrifically dishonest headline appeasing Android, likely in an attempt to get broader coverage for its story, and at the same time, disrespected Apple for 1) creating the App Store, 2) maintaining the only successful app store by any measure, and 3) doing all of the work in changing the fate of games.
AI/DED has chronicled how Apple beat the mobile gaming business at its own game, and all the while critics were laughing hysterically at the idea that Apple or the iPhone could play games worthy of anyone's dollars. So look who was right and who were the clowns.
Both of these post hit the nail on the head. Nintendo and Sony games are simply way too expensive...
That's part of it.
The other part is that you can drop a couple hundred dollars on a portable game console that is useless for anything but playing games - or an iPod Touch or tablet that will do lots of other things. For many people, the multi-function device makes more sense.
WP7 is pretty great. David Pogue has a nice write up on it. I'm even trying to get one of the WP7-based Nokia N9s sent to me from Finland when they come out.
The N9 has Meego, we are already selling them here.
It would be nice to know that, but since most profitable games are deployed to both it doesn't matter much, at least to most developers and consumers.
exactly. the new generation of smartphone/tablet games are being ported by their developers to all the touchscreen platforms at pretty much the same low prices. what is killing Nintendo and Sony are those low game prices which make their hihg-price business model obsolete, and the multipurpose utility of the touchscreen devices with apps that make their PGP's obsolete.
it's over. they're dead. stick a fork in them. just like the consoles killed arcade games. just like arcade games killed pinball.
if Nintendo does't port Mario to iOS, Android, et al., that franchise will soon go the way of Space Invaders ....
That's what I'm thinking. It's like saying the iPad and PlayBook account for 75% of the tablet market. Sure, it's technically accurate, but it doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the landscape.
It does if what you are measuring is the infiltration of touch based mobile phones and tablets in the portable gaming market.
I also would like to know the breakout, but in terms of what is being measured, Android versus iOS is irrelevant here.
We're seeing a replay of what happened to the dedicated console business in the early '80s, when cheap multipurpose home computers like the Commodore 64 and Atari 800XL hit the market at similar price points and wiped the consoles out.
Nintendo was finally able to establish the NES as a successful rival because it was far easier to use than a personal computer and it was cheaper. That became particularly true as the personal computer market moved upscale toward the more expensive IBM PC and monochrome-only Macintosh.
The console makers aren't going to hold such an advantage going forward. Smartphones and tablets are going to remain easy to use, and they're going to stay cheap. In fact, they're likely to get cheaper and easier to use.
The handheld console business is clearly dead, and my guess is the home console will be the next device to be eliminated. Tablets and smartphones may not rival them in terms of raw performance - yet, anyhow - but with their annual release cycles they'll rapidly catch up with most hardware advances made by the consoles. Worse for the consoles, the enormous userbases of the two dominant mobile platforms will attract equally enormous developer communities, making it tough for new consoles to get the kind of developer commitment they need to succeed in relation.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony bow out of the console business entirely. Microsoft would, if they weren't run by idiots. Nintendo doesn't have much alternative but to try, though I don't fancy their chances.
Anybody out there from the camp that was stating emphatically a year or so ago that the iPhone and touch screen-based smartphones were not going to have an impact on the portable gaming market?
That no "serious" gamer would stoop to playing on a phone?
Anybody out there from the camp that was stating emphatically a year or so ago that the iPhone and touch screen-based smartphones were not going to have an impact on the portable gaming market?
That no "serious" gamer would stoop to playing on a phone?
It's just sad that Apple decided that the iPod Touch didn't deserve a hardware upgrade to the A5/PowerVR SGX543MP2, instead of keeping the A4.
Of course, Apple will make more profit on the iPhone 4S, but given the performance of the PowerVR SGX543MP2 in the A5, it was a lost opportunity to gain additional market share with gamers who can't afford an iPhone 4S.
It doesn't help that there appears to be little difference in cost between the A4 and A5 --
Or maybe Apple felt that the 'perceived value' of an iPod Touch with an A5 didn't justify the current price, even though it's not much more in cost. I would have gladly paid $20 over current iPod Touch prices to get one with an A5.
Next year, no deal.
In any case, I hope Apple re-syncs the SoC's between the iPod Touch 5th Gen and iPhone 5 next year, instead of just upgrading to the A5 next time around.
If Apple had kept the SoC's out of sync between the iPod Touch and the iPhone all along, I wouldn't even bring this up.
What you really want to verify is that iOS has 56% and Android has 2% of that gaming market share. Am I right?
well, it would be very interesting to know if Apple has more than Nintend's 36% share of the market. and very likely, it does. making it "Numbah One!".
Anybody out there from the camp that was stating emphatically a year or so ago that the iPhone and touch screen-based smartphones were not going to have an impact on the portable gaming market?
That no "serious" gamer would stoop to playing on a phone?
I remember all those people from a discussion thread long ago, when it was clear as day that this is what was coming.
Needless to say my posts at that time weren't terribly successful at winning them over.
We're seeing a replay of what happened to the dedicated console business in the early '80s, when cheap multipurpose home computers like the Commodore 64 and Atari 800XL hit the market at similar price points and wiped the consoles out.
Nintendo was finally able to establish the NES as a successful rival because it was far easier to use than a personal computer and it was cheaper. That became particularly true as the personal computer market moved upscale toward the more expensive IBM PC and monochrome-only Macintosh.
The console makers aren't going to hold such an advantage going forward. Smartphones and tablets are going to remain easy to use, and they're going to stay cheap. In fact, they're likely to get cheaper and easier to use.
The handheld console business is clearly dead, and my guess is the home console will be the next device to be eliminated. Tablets and smartphones may not rival them in terms of raw performance - yet, anyhow - but with their annual release cycles they'll rapidly catch up with most hardware advances made by the consoles. Worse for the consoles, the enormous userbases of the two dominant mobile platforms will attract equally enormous developer communities, making it tough for new consoles to get the kind of developer commitment they need to succeed in relation.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony bow out of the console business entirely. Microsoft would, if they weren't run by idiots. Nintendo doesn't have much alternative but to try, though I don't fancy their chances.
no, i think consoles still have a leading role for the foreseeble future. after all, Apple TV - which makes AirPlay Mirroring possible - is a basic console. you can't build all that stuff into HDTV's. i mean, you could technically, but it would get obsolete years before you needed to replace the TV. i think instead we will see future game consoles add other STB and Smart TV functions, looking to become your single all-purpose box.
The PS3 was certainly a big initial step in that direction with BluRay, but all its other features are crude compared to iOS. and its 3D TV/games potential just has not taken off yet - if it ever will. but i'm sure Sony will come out with a PS4, as soon as next year. and i bet it is integrated to some extent with the Vita PSP and Sony's tablets and smartphones too, plus their Bravia smart TV's and accessories. we'll see how much, and how well it all works.
but Sony is really bad at software. and depending on Android (and MS) for their OS has always crippled their products. They would be smart to buy WebOS from HP.
Nintendo is stubbornly headed into a dead end now. i bet they get bought up by another Asian company within two years - like Samsung - that wants to build its own full home digital ecosystem.
wheras you know MS will never give up and will keep throwing money at it. wouldn't surprise me at all if they bought TiVo tomorrow and bolted it on to the next generation XBox - the XVo!
I don't see consoles as having any role. The only reason why MS and Sony threw a gazillion dollars into developing this last generation of consoles is because they were seen as "convergence"devices. That never panned out, and it's the smartphone that's become the ultimate convergence device.
Yes, you can spend a couple billion designing and building a console that'll have awesome hardware specs the year it's released. But it'll be a year before a bunch of software becomes available for it, and two years before software which starts to really utilize that hardware comes to market. By that time the average PC will be shipping with better hardware, and given the plummeting price of PCs, for not much more money.
Worse, smartphones and tablets are on a yearly upgrade cycle, and allow you to game anywhere - home or away. They can't touch the performance of a brand-new console, but by the time that console gets established the performance gap will have shrunk considerably. And the mobile devices have enormous installed userbases, pulling in equally enormous pools of developers.
The economics of the console business just don't make sense. It doesn't make sense to spend billions developing a new console, it doesn't make sense as a developer to invest millions building games for a risky new platform with few users, and as a consumer it doesn't make sense to spend money on a new console when your PC will be playing better games in a year or two, and your smartphone has an enormous library of games selling for a fraction the cost that you can play whenever and wherever.
Hardcore gamers alone will not support the console business as it's currently constituted. They need the mass market to succeed, and they've lost it.
Comments
To those that want an Android/iOS game revenue breakdown, my guess is 2/98 now, 70/30 in five years.
And do you have anything to back that up besides pure speculation?
I thought referring to the well known body design of the N9 with the WP7-based qualifier was more clear than calling it the Lumia 800 at this point. I can switch to Nokia Lumia.
Fair enough, for this forum it probably doesn't matter, as ignorance for anything non-Apple abounds. But I frequent places on the internet where people would see red if you confuse the N9 with Elop's body-snatcher.
And do you have anything to back that up besides pure speculation?
I said "guess", you said "speculation", are we playing "synonyms with friends" now?
iPhone games are so much cheaper than their portable console counterparts. If I did not enjoy them, then I am only out 99 cents - $4.99 rather than $60.
If they're spending that much on support it may be time for them to switch cross-platform frameworks.
What are they currently using?
Unity if I remember though they had tried MonoTouch (not too bad but limited functionality and poor Novel support) and a few others. The biggest issue were frame rate tweaks and jitters on the various 100+ Android handsets that always cropped up. So iOS had 8 test beds. Android >100 and they always found things between different versions of Android and different GPU chip sets just enough different to require additional work.
That would be killer. The prices of Mario Kart, etc. would likely be $19.99 however.
Console and portable games have become so expensive nowadays, and in most cases, I do not even beat the games because I did not enjoy them enough to warrant my time. I like dumping $4.99 on Scribblenauts Remix for iPhone rather than $30 for the Nintendo DS versions.
iPhone games are so much cheaper than their portable console counterparts. If I did not enjoy them, then I am only out 99 cents - $4.99 rather than $60.
Both of these post hit the nail on the head. Nintendo and Sony games are simply way too expensive...
The other point is that both the 3DS and the upcoming Vita use dead media... Even if the games were identically priced, the ability to push a single game to all of my devices instantly is a feature that neither Nintendo or Sony can compete against. I just purchased Whale Trail on my iPhone for my kids and within minutes it was on my iPad and iPod Touch. All three of my boys were playing the same game.... How can Sony and Nintendo compete against that??
And do you have anything to back that up besides pure speculation?
Well at the beginning of the year, iSuppli reported Android Market nearly tied with Nokia Ovi at $102/105 million in annual revenues, behind BlackBerry with $165 million in app market revenues, while Apple raked in $1,782 million.
Apple's rivals battle for iOS scraps as app market sales grow to $2.2 billion
Some large percentage of those app titles are games, but it's pretty clear that Apple is the single leader in app revenues with +80 percent of all global mobile app revenue. And Google was not in second place.
So Flurry published a horrifically dishonest headline appeasing Android, likely in an attempt to get broader coverage for its story, and at the same time, disrespected Apple for 1) creating the App Store, 2) maintaining the only successful app store by any measure, and 3) doing all of the work in changing the fate of games.
AI/DED has chronicled how Apple beat the mobile gaming business at its own game, and all the while critics were laughing hysterically at the idea that Apple or the iPhone could play games worthy of anyone's dollars. So look who was right and who were the clowns.
Both of these post hit the nail on the head. Nintendo and Sony games are simply way too expensive...
That's part of it.
The other part is that you can drop a couple hundred dollars on a portable game console that is useless for anything but playing games - or an iPod Touch or tablet that will do lots of other things. For many people, the multi-function device makes more sense.
WP7 is pretty great. David Pogue has a nice write up on it. I'm even trying to get one of the WP7-based Nokia N9s sent to me from Finland when they come out.
The N9 has Meego, we are already selling them here.
It would be nice to know that, but since most profitable games are deployed to both it doesn't matter much, at least to most developers and consumers.
exactly. the new generation of smartphone/tablet games are being ported by their developers to all the touchscreen platforms at pretty much the same low prices. what is killing Nintendo and Sony are those low game prices which make their hihg-price business model obsolete, and the multipurpose utility of the touchscreen devices with apps that make their PGP's obsolete.
it's over. they're dead. stick a fork in them. just like the consoles killed arcade games. just like arcade games killed pinball.
if Nintendo does't port Mario to iOS, Android, et al., that franchise will soon go the way of Space Invaders ....
Since they combined iOS and Android they should have combined Nintendo and Play Station.
I'm about to blow your mind right now.
http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...nde7/graph.jpg
That's what I'm thinking. It's like saying the iPad and PlayBook account for 75% of the tablet market. Sure, it's technically accurate, but it doesn't really paint an accurate picture of the landscape.
It does if what you are measuring is the infiltration of touch based mobile phones and tablets in the portable gaming market.
I also would like to know the breakout, but in terms of what is being measured, Android versus iOS is irrelevant here.
Why is iOS and Android lumped together but the PSP and the DS are separate? Is there a breakdown of these numbers somewhere?
What you really want to verify is that iOS has 56% and Android has 2% of that gaming market share. Am I right?
Nintendo was finally able to establish the NES as a successful rival because it was far easier to use than a personal computer and it was cheaper. That became particularly true as the personal computer market moved upscale toward the more expensive IBM PC and monochrome-only Macintosh.
The console makers aren't going to hold such an advantage going forward. Smartphones and tablets are going to remain easy to use, and they're going to stay cheap. In fact, they're likely to get cheaper and easier to use.
The handheld console business is clearly dead, and my guess is the home console will be the next device to be eliminated. Tablets and smartphones may not rival them in terms of raw performance - yet, anyhow - but with their annual release cycles they'll rapidly catch up with most hardware advances made by the consoles. Worse for the consoles, the enormous userbases of the two dominant mobile platforms will attract equally enormous developer communities, making it tough for new consoles to get the kind of developer commitment they need to succeed in relation.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony bow out of the console business entirely. Microsoft would, if they weren't run by idiots. Nintendo doesn't have much alternative but to try, though I don't fancy their chances.
That no "serious" gamer would stoop to playing on a phone?
Anybody out there from the camp that was stating emphatically a year or so ago that the iPhone and touch screen-based smartphones were not going to have an impact on the portable gaming market?
That no "serious" gamer would stoop to playing on a phone?
It's just sad that Apple decided that the iPod Touch didn't deserve a hardware upgrade to the A5/PowerVR SGX543MP2, instead of keeping the A4.
Of course, Apple will make more profit on the iPhone 4S, but given the performance of the PowerVR SGX543MP2 in the A5, it was a lost opportunity to gain additional market share with gamers who can't afford an iPhone 4S.
It doesn't help that there appears to be little difference in cost between the A4 and A5 --
http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/New...o-iSuppli.aspx -- A4, around $11
http://www.isuppli.com/Teardowns/Mar...at-Counts.aspx -- A5, around $15
Maybe it was an A5 supply issue, or there was too much engineering involved, even though it would appear unlikely --
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/a...xmn3aGcX.large -- iPod Touch 4th gen motherboard
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/I...QSSqwSbg.large -- iPhone 4 motherboard
http://guide-images.ifixit.net/igi/d...nbZ2JiDS.large -- iPhone 4S motherboard
Or maybe Apple felt that the 'perceived value' of an iPod Touch with an A5 didn't justify the current price, even though it's not much more in cost. I would have gladly paid $20 over current iPod Touch prices to get one with an A5.
Next year, no deal.
In any case, I hope Apple re-syncs the SoC's between the iPod Touch 5th Gen and iPhone 5 next year, instead of just upgrading to the A5 next time around.
If Apple had kept the SoC's out of sync between the iPod Touch and the iPhone all along, I wouldn't even bring this up.
What you really want to verify is that iOS has 56% and Android has 2% of that gaming market share. Am I right?
well, it would be very interesting to know if Apple has more than Nintend's 36% share of the market. and very likely, it does. making it "Numbah One!".
Anybody out there from the camp that was stating emphatically a year or so ago that the iPhone and touch screen-based smartphones were not going to have an impact on the portable gaming market?
That no "serious" gamer would stoop to playing on a phone?
I remember all those people from a discussion thread long ago, when it was clear as day that this is what was coming.
Needless to say my posts at that time weren't terribly successful at winning them over.
We're seeing a replay of what happened to the dedicated console business in the early '80s, when cheap multipurpose home computers like the Commodore 64 and Atari 800XL hit the market at similar price points and wiped the consoles out.
Nintendo was finally able to establish the NES as a successful rival because it was far easier to use than a personal computer and it was cheaper. That became particularly true as the personal computer market moved upscale toward the more expensive IBM PC and monochrome-only Macintosh.
The console makers aren't going to hold such an advantage going forward. Smartphones and tablets are going to remain easy to use, and they're going to stay cheap. In fact, they're likely to get cheaper and easier to use.
The handheld console business is clearly dead, and my guess is the home console will be the next device to be eliminated. Tablets and smartphones may not rival them in terms of raw performance - yet, anyhow - but with their annual release cycles they'll rapidly catch up with most hardware advances made by the consoles. Worse for the consoles, the enormous userbases of the two dominant mobile platforms will attract equally enormous developer communities, making it tough for new consoles to get the kind of developer commitment they need to succeed in relation.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Sony bow out of the console business entirely. Microsoft would, if they weren't run by idiots. Nintendo doesn't have much alternative but to try, though I don't fancy their chances.
no, i think consoles still have a leading role for the foreseeble future. after all, Apple TV - which makes AirPlay Mirroring possible - is a basic console. you can't build all that stuff into HDTV's. i mean, you could technically, but it would get obsolete years before you needed to replace the TV. i think instead we will see future game consoles add other STB and Smart TV functions, looking to become your single all-purpose box.
The PS3 was certainly a big initial step in that direction with BluRay, but all its other features are crude compared to iOS. and its 3D TV/games potential just has not taken off yet - if it ever will. but i'm sure Sony will come out with a PS4, as soon as next year. and i bet it is integrated to some extent with the Vita PSP and Sony's tablets and smartphones too, plus their Bravia smart TV's and accessories. we'll see how much, and how well it all works.
but Sony is really bad at software. and depending on Android (and MS) for their OS has always crippled their products. They would be smart to buy WebOS from HP.
Nintendo is stubbornly headed into a dead end now. i bet they get bought up by another Asian company within two years - like Samsung - that wants to build its own full home digital ecosystem.
wheras you know MS will never give up and will keep throwing money at it. wouldn't surprise me at all if they bought TiVo tomorrow and bolted it on to the next generation XBox - the XVo!
Yes, you can spend a couple billion designing and building a console that'll have awesome hardware specs the year it's released. But it'll be a year before a bunch of software becomes available for it, and two years before software which starts to really utilize that hardware comes to market. By that time the average PC will be shipping with better hardware, and given the plummeting price of PCs, for not much more money.
Worse, smartphones and tablets are on a yearly upgrade cycle, and allow you to game anywhere - home or away. They can't touch the performance of a brand-new console, but by the time that console gets established the performance gap will have shrunk considerably. And the mobile devices have enormous installed userbases, pulling in equally enormous pools of developers.
The economics of the console business just don't make sense. It doesn't make sense to spend billions developing a new console, it doesn't make sense as a developer to invest millions building games for a risky new platform with few users, and as a consumer it doesn't make sense to spend money on a new console when your PC will be playing better games in a year or two, and your smartphone has an enormous library of games selling for a fraction the cost that you can play whenever and wherever.
Hardcore gamers alone will not support the console business as it's currently constituted. They need the mass market to succeed, and they've lost it.