The iPhone system is increasingly a game platform that should deserve the attention of traditional manufacturers, especially mobile consoles, such as Nintendo, which owns DS, or Sony, which owns PSP Go.
Since it started operating in July 2008, the Apple app store has attracted 30,000 apps of this kind and if in the year of the debut it represented only 1 percent of the video game market, last year that number increased significantly.
The accounts are from Flurry, which relied on data from the NPD Group, referring to the North American market to make an analysis and conclude that in 2008 the share in sales of console game software – considering the iPhone / iPod Touch as a console – it was done with primacy for «traditional» consoles, which captured 79 percent of the market. Handheld consoles made 20 percent and iPhone (and iPod Touch) 1 percent.
In 2009 the representativeness of the software for iPhone SO multiplied by six. Handheld consoles now represent 24 percent of the market and room consoles 70 percent.
Taking into account only the universe of portable consoles, games for iPhone OS now account for 19 percent. PSP now controls 11 percent of the market, compared to the previous 20 percent, and Nintendo DS’s share falls from 75 to 70 percent.
Another study by In-Stat, moreover, shows that users of Apple’s devices are not only prominent in buying games, but are more active in downloading applications in general. According to data from the market research firm, Apple users download an average of 2.4 times more applications than smartphone users associated with other platforms.
