Smartphones now own over a third of the portable gaming market

When discussing portable gaming it used to be Nintendo’s DS range and Sony’s PSP series that well and truly dominated the market. They are now however joined by a third contender, who most would consider sits outside the realms of traditional video gaming – the smartphone. According to mobile analytics firm Flurry, Google’s Android Operating system and Apples iOS now have a 34% cut on the Portable game software revenue. This places them way ahead of Sony’s PSP which is lagging behind at just 9% and tightens the gap between the Nintendo DS, currently holding 57% share. Also another staggering statistic that has emerged from this study is that the revenue generated by smartphone and tablet games surpassed that of the U.S PC game category for the first time ever last year.

So why is smartphone gaming so quickly taking over as the biggest portable gaming medium, what could be the possible factors behind its success. One big contributor is pricing, with smartphone games starting from free and rarely exceeding the five pounds mark, they are a fraction of the cost of a DS or PSP title. Another reason would be convenience, with a smartphone you say goodbye to the noisy, busy shopping queues and hello to a virtual marketplace, enabling games when you want, where you want. Whilst discussing convenience, another factor is you eliminate the need for carrying another entertainment device around with you, if gaming is also a key part of your mobile phone.

With key smartphone releases such as Angry Birds recently passing the 200 millionth download, its clear to say that the line between mobile phone and portable games console is becoming increasingly harder to distinguish.