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Gamers Abandoning DS, PSP In Favor of Smartphones
donniebaseball23 writes "IndustryGamers reports on new research from Interpret, which shows that more and more people are turning to their phones for game time, leaving the DS and PSP behind. 43.8% of the phone/DS/PSP gaming market plays games on phones, which represents a significant 53.2% increase over the past year. At the same time, Interpret says that the proportion of those who play on the DS or PSP has fallen by 13%. The company notes, 'Gamers appear to be defecting from their handheld gaming devices to phones to get their gaming kicks: a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s).' Notable games industry analyst Michael Pachter also recently commented that handhelds continue to decline and Sony's much rumored PSP2 would be 'dead on arrival' as smartphones continue to gain steam."
Yesterday the Playstation Phone was detailed. Sony Ericsson also already has a long history with mobile phones. Now, Nintendo might be in trouble here..
I take "mental health" days all the time. If my employer doesn't want me to use "Sick Days", don't give them to me.
I would like to see "Sick Days" combined with regular leave into one lump sum.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
And they'll soon find that the games for smartphones are limited, and crap. Therefore moving back to their handheld consoles.
This might work for some genres but the staples of gaming, platformers, shooters, etc, require the precise control of a d-pad.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I've also found it is easier to play games on my phone that I carry on my person because I need it rather than the psp I leave at home because I don't need it.
Isn't the PSP2 going to be an Android Playstation Phone?
The only thing dead on arrival is this speculative article.
Regardless, I own a Motorola DROID and until they release games like "Zelda: Spirit Tracks" for my phone, I'll need my DS.
I would speculate that this is growth of the gaming market and not replacement like the summary seems to imply. I can't argue with the numbers but my gut would say that people who game on their phones do so on both devices. And nobody's going around buying a phone just to play games on so the DS & PSP still fill that market exclusively from cellphones.
a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s).
I'm not saying this quote is wrong but I am awfully suspect of that figure. They claim an online sample size of 9,000 but they don't say how many of those actually own both a gaming phone and PSP/DS. I would be interested in the hard numbers.
My work here is dung.
Yes there are some nifty games on the iphone, but I'd prefer a dedicated portable entertainment device (the touch fits the bill quite nicely as well), over using my smart phone since after a 4-5 hour flight, I'd rather still be able to make a phone call. Get those battery performances up and maybe I'll consider ditching my portable gaming device.
This post may or may not contain cancer causing materials.
more ignorant marketeering from this internet web site chat room message board.
slashdot = stagnated
Phones just have a much larger market right out of the door. PSP/DS are toys. They're for gamers, and seen by many as for children. But everyone has a phone, and it's not seen as childish to play games on them if you've got some time to kill. Phone games also have a lot more casual games than PSP/DS.
Hearing it but not seeing it. I'll stick with my PSP and DS so that my phone's battery isn't drained when I actually need it. Come to think of it, my PSP and DS also have better active use battery life than a phone does. Until that issue is resolved, smartphone gaming will never overtake handheld console gaming. Also, smartphone gaming requires you to actually OWN a smartphone. I'll stick with my relatively simple phone that doesn't give my carrier a chance to "accidentally" charge me for data minutes I didn't use. All it needs to do is make/receive calls and text messages (and frankly I could do without those too).
Correction: Some regular people (not gamers) are turning to their smartphones for gaming. Gamers are people that have a discerning taste for games. Smartphone game quality is lacking (as are controls) when compared to a dedicated mobile gaming device. I've tried several smartphone games, and they are little more than time wasters. You play them a few times, and probably forget about them in a week. There are several titles for PSP that I actually make time to play. There are NO mobile phone/smartphone games I will MAKE time to play.
There's a world of difference between a dedicated gaming device and a touch-screen phone in terms of controls. Using a touchscreen for all input or shoehorning in the phone's buttons for gaming controls can't provide the level of control of a d-pad and ABXY buttons positioned exactly where they need to be. Of course the games market is apparently going more 'casual' so perhaps touchscreens are the way to go. Not that I even have a portable games console or a smart phone for that matter so it's all academic. Fuck it, do what you want with your fucking games.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I rely on my phone to keep me in touch with friends, family and work. As much as I'd love to get one, I'm concerned a smartphone will be a liability if I decided to play one too many rounds of Canabalt on a road trip or checking Slashdot in the checkout line. Instead, I "get by" with an iPod Touch and a dedicated phone. If my touch ever loses power, it's new big deal.
I'm wondering if my concerns are valid, and if so, when news reports start headlining car crash victims unable to dial for help due to one game too many of 'Angry Birds'.
Just because a device can play games doesn't mean it should.
So let me get this straight...when almost every phone you buy these days has games on them, some of them pretty good, people are using the phone they already bought to play them? No way!!!
And for aging older generation handheld game consoles, people are buying them less? C'mon man! How can it be?!?
I'm sure this was put together by some outfit that was paid by someone in the cell phone business to help people along in the decision to spend $250 on a new phone rather than a DS, but cant we at least have something a little bit interesting?
For non hardcore gamers who have phones this makes more and more sense. One device less, always with you.
Win.
Sure, dedicated is always dedicated, but good enough is good enough for most people. Most phones sold in Finland are smartphones by now. Most kids get a phone at 7 when starting school. (Too soon IMHO.)
The supply will go where there is a market to fill the demand.
.: Max Romantschuk
My son is 6. He doesn't need a phone, he needs a DS. How many other millions of people are in this same situation?
So the percentage of handheld gaming conducted on solely gaming device fell.
What this doesn't prove is that gamers are "abandoning" the DS and PSP.
It could just as likely mean that the pool of handheld devices that are game capable has exploded.
If you had 150M handheld gaming devices back when phones sucked for gaming, and now there's a billion total - with 200M being dedicated devices and 800M being smartphones that can game effectively, then yes - the percentage that's DS/PSP plummets, while the total number still climbs.
Without some actual numbers, I'm skeptical that it's wholesale abandonment. The growth of the pool is far more likely to me.
So already I can't get popular titles to run on my kick ass workstation with high end graphic cards and monitors. To play them I would have to buy a crappy console and hook it up to my mediocre TV.
Now, people want to move from that to playing on a phone?
Seems we are going backwards here.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The Nintendo DSphone.
You know you want one. You crave it. You'd sell out your own family for one.
Oops, that last bit was supposed to be [subliminal].
Make mine DS!
they're gone Mac Buuts are exposed That comphrise deliver. Some of
Sorry but the PSP kicks the ass out of any cellphone for control. The DS as well.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
a few months ago when I was visiting an electronics store, and I saw a load of kiddies around the ipad displayed playing games, while the ordinary nintendo ds section and also the PSP sections were abandoned mostly. Ok it also has something to do with the device actually been usable while the others merely had the usual console displayed but it was blatantly clear where the train is heading.
Add to that that the average handheld game on the ds and psp is around 45-50 euros here while the handheld games are dirt cheap and a no brainer to buy. In the end you spend
more on smartphone games than you would on the average console.
Classical example of low prices sellls more cashwise than the average console game.
What I would say is this is a real thread for Nintendo which always had its stronghold in the handheld gaming sektor from where it could start its console experiments. That stronghold is seriously under attack. And in the usual Nintendo manner they probably will realise it two years after they are stone dead in the market.
Gaming on a phone is a matter of convenience. Anyone who's really interested in gaming as a hobby will buy a dedicated device (or a PC), and any serious game developer works primarily (but not necessarily exclusively) with actual game platforms. The fact that the number of casual gamers is increasing does not mean that the so-called "core" gamers are abandoning traditional sources for their games. It just means more people are gaming. In fact, it's entirely likely that some of these new cell-phone-gamers will develop an increased interest that will lead them to purchase a dedicated gaming device when they otherwise may not have done so.
It must be inevitable that all phones out there will soon be able to run games and other apps just as well as iPhone or Android phones do now; giving customers access to the games via easy buying portals and somehow controlling the quality and integrity of the e-store will be another problem to sort out. But I don't know if smart phones will totally kill handheld game machines just yet. Nintendo is keeping itself ahead of the curve with the 3DS. It's only a matter of time before those kind of displays are available in phones, but for now, when matched with first-party software and (it's reported and hoped) a more robust online service, it's enough to make it clear the the 3DS will offer a better gaming experience than a simple phone. The PSP has always seemed to be a misguided attempt to cram console experiences into your pocket, which may be inaccurate, but I still don't see the appeal of it or the PSP2/PSP Phone. But for how long will they maintain this shrinking niche? Nintendo can't release a totally new piece of hardware every few months (and iterations of the same hardware in smaller/sleeker packaging don't count), but the major phone makers can iterate endlessly and catch up more easily. Much as with the Wii has enjoyed an apparent single-generation technological leapfrog via motion controls that will likely disappear when Sony and MS adopt them as de rigueur in their next consoles, what will (or can?) Nintendo do to make future handhelds a place people want to game? They could always continue to publish software, but it's been a very long time since Nintendo developed
The Nintendo DS is 6 years old, I'm not surprised the demand is sinking... It's been running on the same base technology (though in minorly upgraded lite, XL, dsi versions)
However once the 3DS comes out, people will once again get their "Ooh, shiny" fix by buying Nintendos new hand held and enjoying the new novelty.
I love my DS and play on it regularly, because the variety and quality of games on it and will be buying the 3DS.
Nintendo has been teasing us with the 3DS, and you wonder why people stopped buying the DS?
Another reason people are buying phone games over DS/PSP games is price. The handheld games are between 3 and 50 times as much as their iPhone cousins, when the iPhone games are not free.
A third possible explanation is that there has been no significant hardware change/upgrade in the DS/PSP lineup to drive buzz and sales.
The article is pretty weak on analysis or looking for alternative explanations for the drop in sales.
If you want to play a game designed for the d-pad, then you should play that game on the proper platform. I don't want to try to fit Starcraft 2 onto a Nintendo DS, any more than I want to fit Zelda onto an iPhone. If you want to play those games, the best way is to get that platform and play them. I downloaded Golden Axe on my iPhone and learned quickly that slapping a virtual d-pad on an old style game designed for a joystick is not going to be a fun experience.
It's about is the game fun or not. Games that require a d-pad and are not forgiving are not fun on a touch screen, so people go elsewhere. Newer shooters on phones seem to recognise that you have to balance the game play with the fact that you don't have a d-pad but need similar controls. Nova and Eliminate are very popular on the iPhone and are first person shooters.
At the same time, gamers recognize that they have a choice, carry around two devices or carry one. Cell phones are all but required these days. Gaming platforms, not so much. Many hardcore gamers are going to stay with PSP and Nintendo, and that is their choice. However, not everyone is a hardcore gamer. Before people had a choice for mobile gaming, nintendo or Sony. Casual gamers either ponied up the cash or walked away. Now they have a third choice. The games are cheaper, more casual, but still fun. Angry Birds is not a hard core game, and it's got to be the #1 top dollar grossing app across all mobile platforms (it is on the iPhone).
There have been a ton of attempts to come up with a d-pad add on for iPhones. None of them are popular enough or make any sense. The physical d-pad is slowly becoming the niche rather than the norm, and hard core gamers are just going to have to deal with it.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I commute every day, and after having read through one of the monthly magazines i recieve (Aftenposten Innsikt, articles about everything from nuclear power to oil in Nigeria), i play DS or PSP. Or, at least I used to. That made me "abandon" them is that no good games (with some exceptions) come for them any more. I have a phone that I could probably play on, but I prefer having battery left to actually do phone stuff.
Dvorak on Doomtech
the lack of a D-pad is why I would never consider "Smart Phones" a true alternative to my DS.
And the lack of indie games on DSiWare is why some other people would never consider a DS an alternative to their smartphone.
I'd probably still take my DS on a long work trip but most of the time if I'm going to play a quick game it's on my phone. Angry Birds will probably keep me busy for a long time.
Games for DPads are designed for auto-aim and loose control.
Not all video games are first-person shooters. For example, Tetris DS with a D-pad is much more precise than the control method that Tetris and EA chose for their iPhone product.
I think its easier to turn to your cell phone for brief sessions, ie, a wait in the doctors office, than trying to hull around your psp/ds. Now, would I get rid of my psp/ds. Heck no, but thats because I feel those portables provide a more dedicated gaming experience for longer sessions.
To boot, you have the fact that both the DS and the PSP have been out in market for 5+ years while cell phones making huge hardware gains at break neck speeds.
PSP2 I will not be DOA, neither will the DS. As others have said too, you need something for kids...though I guess you could also give them your old smart phone and access the store via wifi...or in the case of apple, a ipod touch.
If you want to play a game designed for the d-pad, then you should play that game on the proper platform.
For which platform should an indie game developer make a game designed for a D-pad? Right now, indie game developers have to make phone games with a virtual D-pad because Sony and Nintendo won't give them the time of day.
Cell phones are all but required these days.
Smartphones, not so much. Let me know when smartphone service approaches the $15 per 3 months that I currently pay Virgin Mobile for service on my Audiovox 8610 flip phone.
phones take a lot more work to develop -real- games for
How so? The devkit for an iPod touch costs $1,000: $600 for a Mac mini on which to run Xcode, $300 for an iPod touch, and $100 for your first year of the iPhone developer program. Android is cheaper to buy the PC but more expensive to buy the device because the platform has no direct counterpart to the iPod touch; the flagship Nexus One developer handset is an unlocked telephone, not a PDA or MP3 player. The devkit for a DS is far more expensive: first you have to have an office, and then you have to have a prior published title on someone else's platform, and even once you've satisfied those requirements, the devkit reportedly costs far more than $1,000.
You can't port the same UI for a game expected to run on something like the Galaxy S and one running on something more low end with no multi-touch or a smaller screen.
But as long as different platforms can run programs written in the same programming language, you can share the effort to develop the game rules and then use the model-view-controller paradigm to abstract the UI. The problem comes when Apple wants only Objective-C++, Microsoft wants only C#, RIM wants only Java, etc.
No parent wants to buy their kid a cell phone
Except for parents who have cut the land line and put their kids on the family plan, like my aunt.
Now that I can get cheevos for xbox live on my windows phone 7, I've tossed my DS. Playing for cheevos is much for fun that having a great score on a DS game that no one can see. I got 50k Cheevos and going now!
One device less, always with you.
And only one device's worth of battery time.
The writing has been on the wall for the DS for quite a while. I'm amazed it lasted this long. Back when I modded my Nintendo DS and started writing apps for it, I had friends writing apps for their iPhones. The main difference: the iPhone was 10 times as expensive as a Nintendo DS. That made the DS a better machine for school kids who could not afford a smartphone and a contract. But only a few years later, a cell phone is just part of the cost of middle-class living along with cable TV and internet. Even grade school kids are getting cell phones. So the "niche" that the DS fills is getting smaller and smaller.
To compete, they either need to start offering the features in smart phones (calendar, web access, texting, phone calls) or offering features the smart phones don't have (significantly better gaming experience). The 3D feature in the new DS might cause a spike, but it is a novelty that won't change the trend of events.
DS/PSP is expensive and the games are expensive. Phones are as powerful or more powerful than DS/PSP, can be used for "other things" and the games are cheaper! What's the downside?
Eventually, we will see more and more new premium titles on phones... especially android phones. Soon we will see more of those bluetooth gamepad cradles for phones and viola!
For some reason a lot of people are ignoring the obvious: the iPod touch (and old iPhone's given to kids). Away from consoles, I mostly see kids playing with these (and with their parents iPhones). One friend's kid plays with his Android phone, but she's just 1 and mostly chews on it.
The DS does a lot more and will also be a host to superior games of all genres because not only does it have a touch screen but it has a D-pad and buttons. I'd much rather use my phone for other apps and surfing the net and my DS for games.
It looks like they're talking about percentage of consumers. So a guy who buys a cheap game on his iPhone is considered equivalent to a guy who buys several games a year for his DS.
That would be the "casual gaming" market, and of course there's more casual participants than enthusiast in any hobby. You can only charge casual gamers about $1 or $2 for a game before they start thinking they should be spending their money on better things, whereas the enthusiast crowd is apparently willing to pay $60-$100+ for their games and various special editions. I guess it's a matter of scale, which is more profitable to you and what you're capable of. The good news is that the medium is popular and there's room for many players.
Twinstiq, game news
What probably is happening, is that the Smarthphone gaming is gaining inertia, while the PSP and DS is has not expanded. This don't mean the people on PSP and DS is "changing" to smartphones, since probably most of the smartphones games have not appeal to these people. Most smarhphones games feel like flash games.
-Woof woof woof!
Why would anyone continue to use a device with physical $30 cartridges when they could be downloading $0.99 games without end (and often with free previews)?
Sure the DS games are deeper, but not 30 times deeper! Maybe 3x better in most cases.
As though that wouldn't be enough, my DS isn't a GPS or a phone and doesn't have internet connectivity in most cases (or a usable browser), all of which I'd need to have around as well.
I've got a few hundred $ in cartridges sitting around if anyone wants 'em (Actually, I probably have spent more in games for the DS than I would for a new iPod touch or maybe even an iPad)
It's mentioned up above, but this point needs to be repeated. I work in a school system, and the iPod Touch is more prevalent than any of the other game systems. It's a no brainer for parents. $230, and then games are $3 or less. Versus $170 for a PSP or $150 for a DSi, plus $20-$30 a game. And then you have to worry about losing the carts. It's only 4 or 5 games until the iPod Touch is cheaper.
Numbers don't lie, there are more games produced for iOS than every game system released since 1986 COMBINED (quantity is not indicative of quality, I know). There are now more than120 million iOS devices, more than the DS and PSP combined.
I don't know what Nintendo has up their sleeves for portable gaming, but the 3DS isn't going to be competitive against the iPod Touch (especially if they're the same price).
My poor DS only gets played with Activision Anthology... :-(
What, me worry?
Try playing "serious" games on a portable device, such as SC2 and WoW. To be worth while, you kinda need the big, high-rez screen, lots of keys/buttons and the kind of really accurate and fast control that a mouse gives (or in rare cases a joystick).
Try playing "casual" games while sitting on the train or waiting for a friend. To be possible, you kinda need it to be there with you... like your mobile phone just happens to be.
(The inverted commas are there because I know of "casual" gamers who play and track their "casual" games as thoroughly as serious gamers.)
For a long time the casual market was mostly ignored. Games were mostly serious games that required a gaming rig with the latest hardware, or possibly a TV game. The mind shift of putting simple games on simple devices had not yet happened. (Compare Lynx games with many newer DS games). Casual gamers seem to prefer matching things up, rather than killing things. They like short games that they can put down immediately. This suits gamers of all ages and does not repel girls. (In my experience girls love gaming, but most girls avoid games where the aim is to kill.) Aside from a lack of interest, most gamers can't afford the time or hardware to play serious games.
So if the bulk of gamers are casual gamers, then of course the casual games industry will boom (as it is now). In the future, most games will be for casual gamers. But there will always be those who have both the time and inclination to play serious games, that require better hardware, so that market will remain. But, as device formats converge and change, and Moore's Law continues, I can imagine that gaming platforms will merge.
For example, motion controllers can be the new joysticks (perhaps not the Wii's, but the PS3, yes). And they look good on a large HD screen. So yeah, that may put a dent in PC's. But a full culture change is required before PC's die. And cultures change slowly. Look how long it took for people to get the hint that short, simple, non-violent games could be really popular (despite really obvious hints such as the success of Tetris and Free Cell). Took a while to get the hint, eh?
And combine perfectly adequate hardware inside TV games, with new controllers, and stereovision... Yeah, trust me, a new phase in gaming is coming. (Athough the hardware is here now, the mind shift is only beginning.)
I temporarily abandoned my PSP to play games on my Ipod Touch and while I still do (mainly due to it being so pocketable) there is a noticable quality difference with the PSP being the easy winner in terms of overall quality, polish, control and smoothness. I'm in the position where I have some of the same games on both systems and the only advantage IOS has is price of games and being easier to pocket. I've seen a ton of games where everyone on apple forums makes lots of noises about how this one is better than the psp and they are in my opinion always wrong. Price and Portability are apples advantages here and they are quite big ones but they aren't even close to taking on proper gaming handhelds and I'm speaking as someone who owns both and uses both. I think Sony has got it all wrong with the PSP 2 though if it is actually bigger in size than the original PSP as rumoured lets face it the original is a bit to bulky to be truly portable never mind making it bigger. I'm sure it will be powerful but if it doesn't fit in a pocket you may as well just play a home console instead. I think 3DS will probably do better than both but I do think the apple devices are improving.
I do see the future potential of phones to do that, but nothing the current generations of phones are brining to the table will do that.
The main things are that:
A) The touch screen, while good at some things, is generally a bad idea when it comes to most actual games so they will need to actually start adding actual buttons and a directional pad + analog to them.
B) The current generation of phones just aren't capable of matching the current portables in graphical quality. Sure they can match and beat the previous generations offerings, but sorry the Iphone 4 just won't match a DS (Soon to be 3DS) or PSP offerings.
C) There is just too much fragmentation in the specs of the phone markets leading you to cater to the lowest common denominator.
D) Many gamers don't have or even want a cell phone or have to deal with paying that much cash for an unsubsidized phone to access the limited games on them.
Now what I can foresee is watching Sony or Nintendo actually make their next generation (or the generation after that) into a game system the doubles as a cell phone. Kinda like the successor to the Nintendo 3DS including all the 3DS has along with 50 gigs of built in flash memory and a built in cellphone that can run with or without a SIM card and on any network. With a powerhouse like Nintendo pulling that, they could make a powerful system that works on any network or without using the cellphone at all all while keeping it at a decent price which would also open up the selling point that even if their kid doesn't have a cellphone plan, they can call 911 from anywhere so long as they have their portable game system with them.
But sorry, there is nothing that the Iphone or Droid offers that can hope to even make a ripple into that market yet. Saying Smartphones are replacing Portable systems is about as accurate as saying that the Iphone is replacing the car stereo. Just cause one sells more, doesn't mean that it is replacing the other.
No, gamers are still using PCs. It would be ok to call these people gamers if the word were qualified by saying "console gamers" or "causal gamers" but even these are inaccurate. The most correct term would be "DS, PSP users"
That doesn't impact the rest of "us"?
Yeah, My girlfriend watches it!
*ZING!*
My computing (big towers + Linux stuff) is relegated to the back room along with the musical gear ('cept the acoustic, natch) for wandering around "computing" I've got me MacBook. That's pretty typical.
When the boy gets a bit older then we'll probably play games together on the TV. Till then... I just use my DS
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
What if kids do not continue to drive this gaming space? I think the Mobile Gaming target is adults. Adults on the commuter train/mass transit. Adults waiting on friends at the coffee shop. Waiting for airplanes. Whose kids are watching KidShowX for the Nth time. For extended trips to the office restroom. (yes, I said it)
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
I think this is a bit of a play on statistics. You can make data read whatever you want, you can make conclusions seem valid by leaving certain info out, etc. There is a tremendous uptick in smart phone users, and with all the major mobile os'es there is a bunch of games. However, these games are mainly ways to pass the time waiting on a bus, in an airport, or during a boring meeting. There are a lot of games on the DS/PSP designed to do this, and some users will probably stick with just a smart phone in the future, true gamers will continue to purchase and use the DS/PSP for the games that are more involved.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.