When I was a kid I carried around a little backpack that held my Nintendo Gameboy, a Sega Game Gear and several dozen game cartridges for each portable system. Today’s children simply carry around a smartphone and can play hundreds of thousands of games on a single device. No backpack or external game cartridges are required.
That trend is only going to grow. AÂ report released on Wednesday by IDC, a leading technology research firm, concluded that paying for games on smartphones and tablets would outpace paid gaming on portable video game hand-held devices by the end of the year.
The report, Worldwide Gaming-Optimized Hand-Held, Smartphone, and Tablet Gaming 2013-2017 Forecast, noted that free smartphone and tablet gaming has been overshadowing play on hand-held game consoles, including those made by Nintendo and Sony, for some time. In the coming months, paid-for games will surpass hand-held consoles and grow rapidly well into 2017, the report said.
For a long time, products like the Nintendo 3DS and Sony’s PlayStation Vita boasted of superior graphics and better game play as their benefit over smartphone gaming. Today’s smartphones and tablets contain enough memory, processing power and screen resolution to outperform hand-helds sometimes. People can also download and update new games wirelessly without going to a store to buy new game cartridges.
Apple, Google and Microsoft also offer technologies that allow people to play games on large television screens with their smartphones and tablets.
Lewis Ward, research manager at IDC, said in a statement that although Google’s Android operating system remains fragmented, with hundreds of variations in the marketplace, it “is on its way to becoming a massively popular gaming platform in Asia/Pacific in particular.†Apple’s iOS has been a popular game platform for several years.
Mr. Ward said that if Nintendo and Sony hoped to compete with smartphone games, both companies would have to explore new business models, including offering “freemium†products, which can include ad-supported games, or products that are initially free but then require paid additions.
The switch by consumers to mobile games will probably affect investor confidence in Nintendo and Sony. IDC noted that the revenue for mobile and portable gaming is forecast to reach $23 billion by 2017.
