Apple's iPhone 4, App Store set world records for gaming

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Apple's success with the iPhone 4 and the App Store has earned the company several impressive records in the 2011 Gamer's Edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.



Given analyst estimates of 1.5 million iPhone 4 units sold on launch day, Apple has earned the title of "Fastest-Selling Portable Gaming System" for its popular smartphone, as certified by Guinness World Records, The LA Times reports.



By comparison, Sony's PlayStation Portable sold just 200,000 units on its launch date in 2005, while the Nintendo DS sold 500,000 units in its first week of availability in November 2004.



"The release of the iPhone has not just changed the mobile industry, but the video game world too," said Gaz Deaves, Guinness World Records Gaming Editor. "With the never-ending App Store selection and an intuitive device, Apple has created a gigantic new space for itself in the casual games genre that literally brings entertainment to users wherever they may be."



Apple's App Store has also been awarded records for being the "Most Popular Application Marketplace" and the "Largest Downloadable Video Game Store." Using numbers from September 2010, Guinnes World Records noted in a statement that Apple had received over 6.5 billion downloads since the launch of the App Store and hosted 259,740 apps, including 61 flatulence simulators.



The App Store's 37,362 games (as of September 2010) dwarf the offerings from rival downloadable game stores. PC game download service Steam offers 1,110 titles, while Microsoft's Xbox Live Indie Arcade has 1,300 games and the Japanese Virtual Console store has 576 titles.



Apple also set the record for the "Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System" with the over 500 available on the first day of business for the App Store.



iOS developers also took home several world records for their work. Rovio's popular "Angry Birds" game was noted as the "Top Paid-For App Store Game in Most Countries." As of October 2010, the game had been recognized as the top paid-for game in the App Store in a record 67 territories worldwide.



Rovio boss Peter Vesterbacka announced last month at the Globile Mobile Internet Conference that total downloads of the game on all platforms had reached 140 million. According to Vesterbacka, Apple "changed everything" about the mobile gaming industry with the release of the iPhone.



Vesterbacka onstage at the GMIC in Beijing



Meanwhile, PopCap's "Plants vs. Zombies" set the record for "Fastest-Selling iPhone/iPod Strategy Game" with more than 300,000 paid downloads in its first nine days of availability, while "Tap Tap Revenge" took the title of "Most Popular iPhone Game Series" with more than 15 million downloads.



Apple has reportedly hired away two key gaming industry PR veterans from Nintendo and Activision in an effort to ramp up gaming on iOS.
«1

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 38
    jonamacjonamac Posts: 388member
    Rovio shipped 140m downloads of Angry Birds but Tap Tap's 15m makes it the most popular iPhone gaming series? Does this mean Rovio sold 125m copies of AB to other platforms? Doesn't seem to make sense.
  • Reply 2 of 38
    joshongjoshong Posts: 51member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jonamac View Post


    Rovio shipped 140m downloads of Angry Birds but Tap Tap's 15m makes it the most popular iPhone gaming series? Does this mean Rovio sold 125m copies of AB to other platforms? Doesn't seem to make sense.



    Guinness is using download numbers from 2010. Rovio's 140 million figure is from April 2011 and includes Android and other platforms.
  • Reply 3 of 38
    jonamacjonamac Posts: 388member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by joshong View Post


    Guinness is using download numbers from 2010. Rovio's 140 million figure is from April 2011 and includes Android and other platforms.



    Thanks for clarifying that Josh. It still seems a huge leap in numbers. Angry Birds has been around a very long time (Dec 09 Wikipedia says) and other platforms are nowhere near as large as iOS yet. 125m downloads in 6 months is too much to be real.
  • Reply 4 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Jonamac View Post


    Rovio shipped 140m downloads of Angry Birds but Tap Tap's 15m makes it the most popular iPhone gaming series? Does this mean Rovio sold 125m copies of AB to other platforms? Doesn't seem to make sense.



    I thought the same thing when I read the article
  • Reply 5 of 38
    bdkennedy1bdkennedy1 Posts: 1,459member
    Nintendo needs to have a "come to Jesus" meeting.
  • Reply 6 of 38
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Given analyst estimates of 1.5 million iPhone 4 units sold on launch day, Apple has earned the title of "Fastest-Selling Portable Gaming System"



    Apple's App Store has also been awarded records for being the "Most Popular Application Marketplace" and the "Largest Downloadable Video Game Store." Using numbers from September 2010, Guinnes World Records noted in a statement that Apple had received over 6.5 billion downloads since the launch of the App Store and hosted 259,740 apps, including 61 flatulence simulators.



    The awards are fine and everything but as with any awards, they are entirely irrelevant. The whole purpose of an award is a symbol of an achievement, in itself it means nothing.



    The achievement of fastet-selling gaming system is not 100% accurate as people don't specifically buy iPhones for the purpose of gaming, whereas they do with a PSP or DS as that's their primary purpose.



    The game store achievement of largest collection and most downloads is no more impressive than having the largest stomach having eaten the most pies. It's not an admirable achievement to become fat, lazy and lower your standards.



    I'd much rather see Apple get an achievement for largest number of quality gaming titles as reviewed by a game review publication first of all and then the title of fastest-selling gaming system actually has some meaning.



    Inflicting flatulence simulators and making profitable a garbage dump full of useless software is not something I'd be proud of. For Apple having such high quality standards in their own products, you'd think they'd place those expectations on their developers too. It's sad that there are developers who do put in a lot of effort but are getting lost in the crowd.
  • Reply 7 of 38
    bedouinbedouin Posts: 331member
    I have not been much of a gamer for the last 10 years, but find myself doing it daily since getting an iPad. Maybe because the games have a more classic feel about them emphasizing fun and social interaction rather than higher specs and bigger explosions. Competing against the entire world in real time for the highest score in Frogger or playing a game of Scrabble with my mom halfway accross the world, in between reading the news and watching TV is something game devices and phones have tried to allow in the past but failed to make enjoyable.
  • Reply 8 of 38
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    What about the Kinect? I thought some Xboxhead would have brought it up by now. Seeing that it, "put the iPad to shame" or whatever it is they said it did in terms of sales.



    Edit: LOL I trolled myself, there you go:



    Kinect for the Xbox 360 is the Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device

    http://community.guinnessworldrecord...6939/7691.html
  • Reply 9 of 38
    brucepbrucep Posts: 2,823member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    What about the Kinect? I thought some Xboxhead would have brought it up by now. Seeing that it, "put the iPad to shame" or whatever it is they said it did in terms of sales.



    Edit: LOL I trolled myself, there you go:



    Kinect for the Xbox 360 is the Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device

    http://community.guinnessworldrecord...6939/7691.html



    I have X-BOX 360 !!

    is the Kinnects a good buy ???

    Are the games fun ??



    Any way the kinnects had a 90 day pre sale . you went to a say a game stop and paid money in advance.

    so does that seem to cheapen the fast sales pace or not ??



    9

    trolls dance the night away part 1
  • Reply 10 of 38
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    What about the Kinect? I thought some Xboxhead would have brought it up by now. Seeing that it, "put the iPad to shame" or whatever it is they said it did in terms of sales.



    Edit: LOL I trolled myself, there you go:



    Kinect for the Xbox 360 is the Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device

    http://community.guinnessworldrecord...6939/7691.html



    Why do they choose a 60 day time frame for sales? Why not a weekend, a week, month, quarter, or year? Or why not multiple measures of fastest selling across various time frames?
  • Reply 11 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by bdkennedy1 View Post


    Nintendo needs to have a "come to Jesus" meeting.



    LMAO This is the WINNINGEST comment.
  • Reply 12 of 38
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    What about the Kinect? I thought some Xboxhead would have brought it up by now. Seeing that it, "put the iPad to shame" or whatever it is they said it did in terms of sales.



    Edit: LOL I trolled myself, there you go:



    Kinect for the Xbox 360 is the Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device

    http://community.guinnessworldrecord...6939/7691.html



    I don't have an Xbox so I don't get why millions of gamers want to stand in front of their TVs and look like they're having epileptic seizures or something.
  • Reply 13 of 38
    neiltc13neiltc13 Posts: 182member
    But how many iPhone 4 owners actually use their phones for gaming?
  • Reply 14 of 38
    nkalunkalu Posts: 315member
    Impressive! Apple haters should read this.
  • Reply 15 of 38
    patranuspatranus Posts: 366member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nvidia2008 View Post


    What about the Kinect? I thought some Xboxhead would have brought it up by now. Seeing that it, "put the iPad to shame" or whatever it is they said it did in terms of sales.



    Edit: LOL I trolled myself, there you go:



    Kinect for the Xbox 360 is the Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device

    http://community.guinnessworldrecord...6939/7691.html



    KIinect is an accessory not a consumer electronic device.
  • Reply 16 of 38
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Patranus View Post


    KIinect is an accessory not a consumer electronic device.



    I see your point and it?s surely an accessory, but it can also be defined as a consumer electronic.
  • Reply 17 of 38
    magicjmagicj Posts: 406member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    Inflicting flatulence simulators and making profitable a garbage dump full of useless software is not something I'd be proud of. For Apple having such high quality standards in their own products, you'd think they'd place those expectations on their developers too. It's sad that there are developers who do put in a lot of effort but are getting lost in the crowd.



    /signed
  • Reply 18 of 38
    newbeenewbee Posts: 2,055member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    The whole purpose of an award is a symbol of an achievement, in itself it means nothing.



    Spoken like a man who is used to coming in second.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    The achievement of fastest-selling gaming system is not 100% accurate as people don't specifically buy iPhones for the purpose of gaming, whereas they do with a PSP or DS as that's their primary purpose.



    So .... it's a negative that Apple produced a multi-purpose device and PSP & DS did not?? If you look at recent data from some "GAME" developers .... their IOS downloads are very impressive indeed ... well, maybe not to you ... but that's just your opinion, I guess.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    I'd much rather see Apple get an achievement for largest number of quality gaming titles as reviewed by a game review publication first of all and then the title of fastest-selling gaming system actually has some meaning.



    Spoken like a true elitist.

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post


    It's sad that there are developers who do put in a lot of effort but are getting lost in the crowd.



    I would suggest that, in most cases, the cream rises to the top. If the quality is there, in more minds than just that of the developer, then that app will be found and people will buy it.



    The APP store and the iPhone lead their competition, in their respective fields, by such a large margin that to try to pick hole in their metholodgy usually comes across as sour grapes.
  • Reply 19 of 38
    magicjmagicj Posts: 406member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by newbee View Post


    I would suggest that, in most cases, the cream rises to the top. If the quality is there, in more minds than just that of the developer, then that app will be found and people will buy it.



    Well, Steve Jobs himself has said "We don't need any more fart apps". So while I don't think Apple should be draconian about it, at some point they need to say "Your app isn't adding anything of value to our store." I'm all for consumer choice, but consumers can't make a choice if they can't find your product because it's buried under 100s or 1000s of junk apps.



    As to finding things, I think _all_ of Apple's stores, iTunes, the Apps Store, and iBooks, could use help in this area. And that's speaking with my consumer hat on, not my developer hat.



    Improved organization would help. For example, I don't need to scroll through dozens and dozens of apps in non-English languages if I'm only looking for English. So organizing things by language would be a great help all by itself.



    Improved search would help too. If I'm only looking for, say, animate movies, it'd be nice if there was a way to search for that. You can go to iTunes, click movies, and search for "Animated", but it doesn't return all the animated movies, just a few. Plus it returns hits for "Animated" from all categories, not just movies.
  • Reply 20 of 38
    jfanningjfanning Posts: 3,398member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Patranus View Post


    KIinect is an accessory not a consumer electronic device.



    The iPhone is not a portable gaming device, it is a smartphone that allows you to play games.
Sign In or Register to comment.