Handhelds are the future?

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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.

You have a problem with reading comprehension, don't you? I'm not talking about the huge companies that sell blockbusters, I'm talking about the smaller companies that are turning indie and don't need to get hundreds of thousand dollar loans to make a project when there are better options now (note: I'm not talking about companies that can put in 50 million dollars and 3+ years to a title). Contrary to popular belief, there is more to the industry than just the big cheeses like Square-Enix, EA and Activision. And the smaller guys are struggling big time to the point where they are turning indie and the iOS platform (especially with the Mac App Store now released) is a great way to get in there without having to fork out licensing fees that are huge.

It's all relative, too. Whilst Angry Birds won't make billions of dollars, they won't have to hire hundreds of people and get licenses and investors that want their piece of the pie. There are huge amounts of indie studios (and I'm not even going to consider EA since the iPhone/Smartphone market isn't based off how much production value you can shove in to a title) that are surviving just fine and making a lot of money for themselves.