It should come as no surprise at this point that mobile phones are demolishing the handheld gaming market.
Sony‘s Playstation Vita has struggled with sales since releasing almost two months ago. Nintendo had to drop the price of their 3DS last year after similarly dismal sales numbers.
Nintendo posted their first-ever yearly loss last week, complete with graphs comparing sales of their handheld devices with that of Apple‘s iPhone.
It’s not looking pretty for the House of Mario.
Graph courtesy of The Verge
It seems that we have finally arrived at the point in which dedicated handheld gaming devices are obsolete.
Despite offering only sadness for companies like Nintendo and Sony, the iOS and Android platforms might just be the greatest innovations for gamers on-the-go.
Not only are games usually far cheaper on the iOS App Store or Android’s Google Play market, but the ability to keep one all-purpose device on oneself makes gaming, listening to music, reading ebooks, etc., indisputably more convenient.
With pricing and convenience on the side of mobile phones, where does that leave Sony and Nintendo? In all likelihood, it’s probably going to lead them to develop games for platforms other than their own.
We’re still quite a bit away from this proposed future, as both handhelds from Sony and Nintendo are in their infancy, but it would be foolish for these companies to ignore what has been proven to be the next step in mobile gaming.
How long will it be before we see Kratos on an Android or Mario on an iPhone? We’re probably still a few years out. But with Nintendo’s financial report we now know that Big N isn’t ignoring their true competition in handheld gaming.
Sadly, it’s a competition in which they’re doomed to fail.
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