Recently, news came out about the sales status on the Nintendo DS, and the news for Big N was not good at all. Now, the news has come out on Sony's portable gaming excursion, and the news there is equally not good. Sufficiently so, in fact, to make me wonder if mobile gaming has just about had it against its biggest competitors.
Sony went into its launch of the PlayStation Vita with high hopes, expecting to sell 16 million for the fiscal year. With the first three months of the PlayStation Vita down, and only 1.8 million sold, it triggered a bit of humble pie to go around Sony, and an altered forecast of selling just 12 million. Worse yet, the forecast dropped once again, expecting now to sell just 10 million by March 31, 2013.
Admittedly, that doesn't by itself spell doom for portable gaming. After all, they've sold just shy of two million units thus far, and Nintendo is also making sales. Portable gaming is hardly dead, but it's nowhere near the levels at which it once was. The competition is catching up, and it's tough for portable gaming to compete with smartphones. Between the wide array of inexpensive games for download at any time, and the sheer ubiquity of smartphones, it's giving the portable gaming market a run for its money.
However, there are signs of stabilization: Nintendo's core handheld market looks reasonably stable. Sony's still making sales. And both companies are running console systems that have completely separate markets, markets the smartphone market can scarcely hope to compete in.
This may not be the end of the portable gaming market, but without some fairly substantial countermeasures taken, it's certainly not looking good. Portable gaming is going to need to augment its experience, make itself too irresistible to pass up with cheap downloadable smartphone gaming.
Android (operating system) Bethesda Bethesda Softworks Downloadable content Electronic Arts Electronic sports Facebook Fallout (series) Fallout 3 Fallout: New Vegas Gamer Games Google IOS Maryland Massively multiplayer online game Microsoft Microsoft Windows Mobile game Nintendo Oculus Rift PC game Personal computer PlayStation PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Sony The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim United States Video game Video game console Virtual reality Wii Wii U World of Warcraft Xbox Xbox 360 Xbox Live Xbox One YouTube
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- October 2011
- September 2011
Featured Videos