There are two types of game that can be categorized: Console and Portable. Today the U.S. game market mostly produce console games because they make the highest profit from it. Among many console games,
Nintendo Wii,
Play Station 3, and
Xbox 360 are the most popular types. There are several reasons why people love console games. From those reasons, high definition graphics and their interfaces attract so many consumers to purchase the product. Therefore, there is a continuous increase of profit in console game markets.
However, according to the
chart by Flurry, console games’ revenue in 2009 decreased by 8% compared to 2008’s. On the other hand, both portable and iPhone games' revenue in 2009 increased by 4%. The graph above also indicates that the U.S. game trend is now slightly changing.
Technology develops and rapidly grows every second. Therefore there is a higher expectation that consumers expect because they want better products and better quality. They also expect smaller sizes of game products so it does not take too much space at home. This is one of the reasons why the companies started to produce portable games with similar quality and specifications. In addition, the cheap price of portable games attracts the users even more.
The most well-known portable devices are
Nintendo DS and
Play Station Portable. Since portable games mainly allow people to play games outside home and easy to carry around since they are light-weighted. iPhone games can also be considered as portable.
Flurry’s chart shows how portable games’ revenue for iPhones has increased. While iPhone’s game revenue increased by 14%, Play Station Portables decreased by 9%, and Nintendo DS decreased by 5%. Why?
First of all, the cheap price of the software is very important factor. The iPhone application store provides most games for only 99 cents. Therefore, many people can easily purchase software without paying expensive price. On the other hand, both Play Station Portable and Nintendo DS games are usually 25 dollars. It is 25 times more expensive than iPhone games.
Secondly, it is more convenient to purchase and play iPhone games than other portable devices. iPhone is a cell phone, which can connect to internet anywhere. In addition to its numerous utilities, the internet connection enables iPhone users to download various kinds of applications from Apple application store. It only takes approximately 2 minutes; therefore, many people can easily download games and a lot of them prefer to use the iPhone. On the other hand, Play Station Portable or Nintendo DS requires the users to go to the game stores to buy games or order them from online. As it takes more time to purchase games, people start to hesitate to use those devices and it reduces their revenue.
Currently, game market is mostly controlled by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. Although iPhones have significantly increased its market in a year; however, as the graph indicates, the total game market revenue of iPhone is still only 5%. However, Apple keeps trying to increase its market, and it actually announced that it will start focusing more on game markets more seriously.
Few days ago, the
iPhone OS 4.0 was released. It was widely welcomed for its ability to multi-task and other great fuctions. Especially, the game center service shocked other game developers. It seemed to be obvious that this new iPhone OS 4.0 with the game center service will have a huge effect on the global economy.
Apple’s newly published game center provides communities for many games at AppStore. As a result, iPhone users will be able to share their experiences and knowledge with other users now. Game center service is similar concept as
PSN by Sony’s PS 3 or
XBOX Live by MS’s XBOX 360. This service will allow the game players to invite each other to play games together and rank the players. Therefore, the game players can enjoy different games not only by just playing themselves but also making close relationships with other people who have similar interests.
The game center service may not be a big deal for those who are not interested in games; however, the global game market is expecting a huge impact from Apple’s new product. Sony, MS, and Nintendo are facing serious problems in the game market because the iPhone and the iPad are becoming more popular among consumers and many of them prefer their products because Apple provides a great and convenient services to consumers in both cell phone markets and portable game markets.
It is not always guaranteed for Apple’s game center to be the best in the market. However, its powerful influence in the market cannot be ignored. Using the graph shown above, Steve Jobs compared the number of games sold by Soy and Nintendo, Apple seems to be more aggressive to be the best in the game market in terms of number of titles. Sony and Nintendo may have interviews regarding this matter while they will find solutions against Apple’s development.
As mentioned previously, Apple’s game center may not perfectly dominate Sony, MS, and Nintendo. However, it is true that Apple is definitely interested in the game market where other companies are currently dominant. Additionally, the Apple store started to provide various types of games, including those with great graphics and game systems. Since then, Sony, MS, and Nintendo seem to hate Apple’s aggressive management. The resulting competition has a great effect on both the game developers to make better games with easier access, and the game users, who are able to enjoy the large variation of great games.
It was unpredictable that actually portable device market would influence console market to decrease their profits. But as technology develops, portable devices started to include more features in their products such as music and movie player, and a program that connects to WI-FI. As there are more features adding on to these portable players, more consumers are fascinated to these new features which make their lives more convenient and ultimately increase the product profit at the end. From consumers’ perspective, they enjoy and purchase these products as companies sell new generations with new features. But from company’s perspective, it is important to come up with better ideas and more convenient and “catchy” features that would attract consumers and encourage them to purchase more products. So now the competition begins among the companies and they all should recognize what consumers really need and want and quickly find out their taste in today’s society, which will help them to make the best product in the market competing with other companies’ products, and it will maximize the company’s profit after all.
