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.
Except that it's been that way for many years.Originally Posted by kotora
Apple have had over four years to implant their iPhone devices in to the general publics mind. Everyone either has an iPhone or wants one. It'll be really tough to try and get in to the smartphone market as has been seen with Windows Phone 7 which is ultimately a superior OS for smartphones (who are now going to team up with Nokia, so we'll see how that goes).
Just another quick tidbit - Games are going social. Even moreso than before. Things like Facebook are a hugely viable option for developers. I was reading up about an analysis saying that you don't even have to have a top ranking game on Facebook to be able to make $500,000/yr. It's really that insane. So I think the social aspect will really impact what the next consoles and handhelds will be like, as the smartphones have already had a jump start in that direction.
EDIT:
I thought this might be of some interest:
http://toucharcade.com/2011/02/21/sq...y-iii-release/
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