Handhelds are the future?

[nirojan]

AS of me writing this it's a three way tie!
It'll be a co-existance. As much as handhelds are improving and coming closer and closer to the home console experience, the majority of the people will still prefer home consoles. Yes some iphone games are breaking through, like infinity blade and dead space, but untill the standard iphone games reach that level of fidelity, I don't see that really being a threat. As for portable handhelds, well the 3DS and the NGP (especially seeing the graphics power behind this one) are really edging towards the HD console experience, but most gamers will still favour laying on a couch and playing games on a 50' screen.

One thing to keep in mind is a lot of big studios have been shutting down and more indie studios are popping up. Due to lack of resources, these indies are aiming at things like the iPhone simply because it's really cheap to develop for and there's a massive market for it (when I say massive, I mean much bigger than the console, pc and nintendo market). Why spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on development kits and a big staff list when you can just get a few people together and only spend a hundred on an iOS licesnse? Even marketing can be done on the cheap these days, what with social networks and all. Just look at Angry Birds, it has already sold over 15 million copies.

I hope you know those indie devs are not making much. Another thing your wrong about is console development is not in the hundred of thousands it's in the millions (for HD console games/high-end PC titles). Angry birds is probably the best selling iOS game, and like you stated it sold 15 million, but a game that started off as a $1.99 game and dropped to $0.99 doesn't make much. Let's say even if everyone bought it back when it was 2 buck (and they didn't), that'd be around 30 million in sales. Let's not forget development cost and the Apple royalty. That's no where near what console specific games are making. Both COD MW2 and COD BO made over a BILLION EACH!! That's best selling iOS vs best selling Console game! Even if you subtract the 2 year pay for the developers to make those titles (Infinity Ward and Treyarch), add in the MASSIVE ad campaign Activision put out for the game, the $10 royalty (to MS for 360 and to Sony for PS3) and in the end they have still made Billions. Now I know I picked the extreme example, but in fairness you chose the best selling iOS title. Games like Final Fantasy, Halo, Resident Evil, Gran Theft Auto, etc. that sell around the 5-10 million units are still making hundred's of million of dollars. You really are talking oranges and apples when comparing sales between mobile platforms and consoles. For big publishers, the mobile market is more of an experiment then any actual profit. Look at what EA had to do with their iOS titles, they tried to make money like how they do on consoles, but failed miserably. Now they dropped soo many of their games down to $0.99 (most which started of as $9.99)! The problem with your "MASSIVE" market is that not everyone who buys an iphone will be gaming on it. There are people who *brace for it* just use it as a phone! compare itunes/app store sales to the number of iphone units sold worldwide around release to new customers.