Nintendo and Sony have traditionally led the mobile gaming market in terms of platform and revenue. But as mobile devices become more capable as gaming platforms, mobile consoles are losing their edge in the market. Figures from Flurry Analytics indicate that Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS are fast eating into the revenues of Nintendo and Sony in terms of mobile games.
In 2009, iOS and Android only had a 19% share of the market. In 2010, this grew to 34%. This year, Android and iOS are the dominant platform, with 58% of revenues from mobile games. Flurry says the entire mobile gaming industry is worth $3.3 billion this year, which fetches the iOS and Android platform almost $2 billion, distributed among game developers and the platform owners themselves.
Meanwhile, Nintendo now only owns 36% of the market it once dominated, and Sony has a paltry 6%.
Analyst Peter Farago says the mobile gaming business model is fast-changing. Portable gaming systems cost about $200, with games selling for $25 or more per cartridge. This has been supplanted by application ecosystems, with games selling for as little as $0.99. Many games even follow a “freemium” model, in which the games themselves are free, but developers earn from premium content, such as in-game items, add-on software, and the like.
As a result, companies like Nintendo are struggling. With falling Wii sales and difficulty in maintaining its market share in mobile games, Nintendo is facing a financial hardship, which is not helped by the fact that Google and Apple are also planning to take over the living room with integrated TVs and entertainment systems running their respective platforms.
With these developments, is it game over for Sony and Nintendo, at least in the mobile gaming race?
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