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每日观察:关注ABI预测以及DeNA财报等消息(5.3)

发布时间:2011-05-03 17:16:28 Tags:,,,,

1)据Zokem最新数据显示,玩游戏已成智能手机的第五大用途,约60%的用户每月都会体验智能手机游戏。

Zokem通过问卷调查和其他调查分析方法,根据用户平均每月使用手机的时间,追踪了9个不同地区的智能手机使用数据。据该公司分析,短信和语音服务分别是用户的第一大智能手机用途,而玩游戏与个人信息管理(PIM)则并列成为第五大用途,其所占比例均为6%,浏览网页和社交网络所占比例分别为12%和8%。

total-device-facetime

total-device-facetime

2)ABI Research最近预测,手机应用程序到2016年下载量将达440亿次(游戏邦注:ABI曾预测去年手机应用程序下载量将达80亿次)。ABI的报告与Distimo相似,也认为Android和Windoows Phone 7的应用下载量正稳步追赶苹果App Store。目前Android Market的应用下载量超过了30亿次,苹果在今年1月份则实现了100亿次下载量。

3)日本手机社交游戏巨头DeNA宣布2010财年(截止2011年3月31日)第四季度净销售额为3.93亿美元,已连续6个季度实现收益增长,比2009财年同期增长67.5%,并表示公司实现了该财年的营收目标,全年总销售额达13.8亿美元。该公司计划在2014年创收24亿美元,为实现这一目标,DeNA将面向西方和中国市场开放Mobage平台,并向日本、中国、北美和欧洲地区推广其开放式平台策略。

kickstarter-logo

kickstarter-logo

4)大众融资网站Kickstarter联合创始人Yancey Strickler最近通过其博客表示,该网站上线两年以来,游戏项目的融资金额已突破100万美元(105.2557万美元),超过了舞蹈、时尚和漫画项目所获资金(游戏邦注:这些游戏包括多种类型,并不只是局限于视频游戏)。不过电影和音乐项目的支持率仍然远胜游戏项目,其融资金额分别为1970万美元和1310万美元。

其他有趣数据和统计资料还包括,该网站共有59.1773万名融资支持者,其中有7.9658万名“重复投资者”——他们曾向一个以上的项目投资。这些支持者总共为该网站项目投资5310万美元。

Kickstarter网站上有43%的项目成功融资,而那些达到30%融资目标的项目,其后续支持率也往往高达90%。

Gamestop-logo

Gamestop-logo

5)游戏零售商GameStop最近刊登了一则招聘软件工程师的广告,其工作职责是“开发和维护GameStop在Android平板电脑和智能手机上的播放器软件”,并负责将播放器移植到Android设备,与该公司其他设备制造商合作伙伴保持沟通,并参与质量测试。该广告还要求应聘者需具有iOS平台的开发经验,工作地点是在德克萨斯州的奥斯汀,即GameStop旗下的Spawn Labs工作室所在地。

有观察者认为,这表明GameStop不光打算推出平板电脑,而且有意兼顾智能手机市场。因为Spawn Labs的专长就是推出基于云的游戏,而GameStop之前收购的另一家工作室Impulse是一个游戏数字销售平台,所以GameStop很有可能向用户推出游戏的云版本服务。

GameStop招聘的另一个软件工程师的工作职责是将GameStop播放器移植到基于Linux的系统中,其他要求条件与Android软件工程师相同。

AlliedStarPolice

AlliedStarPolice

6)PopCap最近与身患急性淋巴细胞白血病的9岁儿童Owain Weinert合作开发了新款iOS游戏《Allied Star Police》。Owain一直很热爱电子游戏,并梦想能够开发自己的游戏,PopCap公司帮助他实现了这个愿望,他们经过数周时间的合作,共同推出了这款射击游戏。该游戏拥有许多未来主义风格的汽车,支持玩家通过射击将坏蛋一网打尽。

不过该公司并未透露游戏的具体发布日期,仅表示将在未来数周内登陆iTunes。该游戏支持运行于iPhone、iPad和iPod Touch,但并未公布其具体售价。

satoru_iwata

satoru_iwata

7)任天堂总裁岩田聪日前表示,公司不会效仿平板电脑的做法,放弃其掌机设备的传统控制面板的按钮。他认为这些可触摸到的按钮“有利于开发高质量的反应型游戏,他还表示有兴趣将触摸屏系统与任天堂系统相结合。据称该公司的下一代Wii有可能同时采用交互式的触摸屏功能,以及传统的按钮控制系统。

岩田聪还借此澄清他在GDC大会上的言论,并表示他并不认为手机及社交游戏的崛起与任天堂最近游戏销量的下降直接相关,也不觉得任天堂DS用户开始在智能手机设备上玩游戏之后,就会宣布弃用任天堂DS。他还强调,自己的言论并不是在暗示数字游戏领域会成为低端游戏唱主角的市场,也不是说所有的传统游戏质量都很高。据他所称,他在GDC大会上想传递的信息只是提醒游戏开发者注意捍卫游戏的价值,因为数字销售渠道很可能贬低游戏价值,最后会让传统游戏开发商面临艰难处境。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

1)Sorry, Mario: Smartphones Are the Hot New Game

Smartphones are being used increasingly as multi-purpose mobile devices, with activities ranging from standard communication to managing websites and doing your taxes. This flexibility, in combination with connectivity, high performing video hardware and social networks is leading more consumers to play games on the devices, too: 60 percent of smartphone owners are gaming on a monthly basis using their handset.

This datapoint comes from Zokem, which gathers smartphone usage data from nine different countries in lieu of questionnaires or other research surveys. According to the company’s analysis, gaming is now tied for the fifth most engaging use for smartphones, along with personal information management (PIM) activities, following more common uses such as messaging, voice communications, web browsing, and social networking. The activity rankings are based on user engagement, in the form of device face time on a minutes-per-month basis.(source:gigaom

2)Users Will Download 44 Billion Mobile Apps By 2016

There’s no doubt that there’s been both an explosion of growth in mobile app downloads and app stores. While Apple’s App Store has dominated in terms of number of apps and downloads, Distimo just released a study that projects the Android Market will become the largest store in terms of number of applications in about five months from now, passing the App Store.

Today, ABI research is reporting that the app industry is on its way to achieving 44 billion cumulative downloads by 2016. Similar to Distimo’s findings, ABI reports that Android and Windows Phone 7 are steadily catching up with Apple in terms of downloads.

So far, over 3 billion apps have been downloaded from the Android Market and Apple passed 10 billion app downloads in January. Last year alone, ABI estimated that total app downloads approached 8 billion.(source:techcrunch

3)DeNA Reports Fourth Quarter Sales of $393 Million and 2010 Fiscal Year Sales at $1.38 Billion

DeNA, the leading global mobile and social games company, has announced today that its fourth quarter net sales performance was $393 million*, 67.5 percent higher than last year’s final quarter.

Reporting its sixth consecutive quarter of increasing revenues, DeNA has also confirmed that the company has met its goals, with 1.38 billion dollars in sales for the fiscal year.

DeNA currently projects an aggressive growth plan to reach 2.4 billion dollars in operating income for 2014. Mapping a plan to achieve its vision, the company will roll out Mobage in the West and in China, and promote its Open Platform strategy globally, including key markets Japan, China, North America and Europe. DeNA will also continue to build further alliances with hardware and telecom companies to rapidly open up its services to a massive user base and attract great developers worldwide. (source:stockhouse

4)Kickstarter Reports Over $1M In Pledges Towards Games

Project funding site Kickstarter has revealed, exactly two years after first launching, that over $1million has been pledged towards game projects on the site.

Posting on the Kickstarter blog, co-founder Yancey Strickler noted that games have collectively received funding of exactly $1,052,557. More money has been contributed to games than dance, fashion and comics projects.

However, this number was slight in comparison to film and music projects, which have seen donations of $19.7 million and $13.1 million respectively. It should also be noted that the Games category includes all types of games, and not just video game projects.

Strickler also revealed other interesting figures and statistics. Kickstarter has seen 591,773 backers in total, with 79,658 ‘repeat backers’ — i.e. users who have backed more than one project. Over $53.1 million has been pledged in total.

He said that approximately 43 percent of projects on Kickstarter are successfully funded, and that projects which reach 30 percent of their funding goals go on to be fully funded 90 percent of the time.(source:gamasutra

5)GameStop may stream games to Android devices

GameStop’s acquisition of Spawn Labs and Impulse is setting the company up to be a market leader in the future. Spawn Labs specializes in streaming games from the cloud and Impulse is a digital distribution platform for gaming. GameStop already showed interest in selling its own tablet and creating a service that will give customers access to a cloud version of every new game they purchase. It now appears that streaming games on mobile devices may occur on more than just GameStop’s tablet.

A recent job listing from GameStop calls for a software engineer that “will be responsible for the development and maintenance of our [GameStop] Player software on Android tablets and smartphones.”

The desired candidate will also have significant experience developing for iOS. The location of the job is in Austin, Texas which is where Spawn Labs is located.

Among the job responsibilities the software engineer will have includes porting the player to Android devices, keeping communications open with other device makers GameStop has partnered with and participate in quality assurance testing.

Another listing calls for a software engineer than will port GameStop’s player to Linux-based systems. The job requirements are virtually identical to the previous listing for an Android engineer.(source: gamertell

6)PopCap’s Allied Star Police is a Make-A-Wish iOS game

I know everybody is hyped up about PopCap’s Unpleasant Horse iOS game right now, but the company is bringing another game to iTunes that you should be just as excited about. It’s called Allied Star Police and it’s a collaborative effort between PopCap and a Make-A-Wish kid named Owain Weinert. Yup, this is one of those heat

See, Owain has pre-B Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, and he happens to love video games. He wanted to make one of his very own, and PopCap stepped up to make it happen. So the two have been working together for weeks on Allied Star Command, a shooting game. You can see the preliminary screenshot above. There are lots of futuristic vehicles and it looks like players will be going around, shooting down bad guys. PopCap even put together a launch party in honor of Owain and his game at its Seattle ofices on April 26, 2011, where attendees got to enjoy food and fun, Oh, and get commemorative shirts. Kudos to PopCap for helping make a kid’s dream come true!

PopCap doesn’t have an exact release date, so make sure you keep an eye on iTunes over the next week or so for Allied Star Police. It’ll be available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. No word on price yet. I wonder if PopCap’s going to have the proceeds benefit Make-A-Wish. It seems like something the company would do.(source:gamertell

7)Iwata: Nintendo Won’t Abandon Buttons, Has Not Been Hurt Directly By Social, Mobile

In a press Q&A accompanying a recent Nintendo investor briefing, company president Satoru Iwata said he doesn’t see the company abandoning traditional control pads and buttons in its hardware, as some mobile tablet makers have.

Saying that tactile buttons “are advantageous when creating highly reactive games,” Iwata said he was primarily interested in using touch screens “in line with the trend created by Nintendo DS” in future hardware.

Nintendo’s recently confirmed successor to the Wii is widely rumored to include an interactive touchscreen on a controller that also sports traditional buttons.

The Nintendo chief also used the opportunity to clarify remarks he made at March’s GDC keynote about the market effect of cheap and free social and mobile games, saying he does not believe the rise of such games has led directly to recent sales declines for Nintendo.

“As I emphasize again and again, if there was a causal relationship, there would be a significant difference between Nintendo DS users who play social games and Nintendo DS users who do not play social games,” Iwata said, adding that the company’s research shows this is not the case.

“I cannot say that no one said, ‘I recently stopped playing Nintendo DS because I am now playing games on my smartphone,’ but statistically, there was no significant difference,” he said.

Iwata also clarified that he did not intend for his remarks to imply that large digital game marketplaces would necessarily be dominated solely by low-quality games, or that all traditional games were high quality.

“The only message that I had hoped to convey at GDC was, since my keynote speech was dedicated to the game developers, that, without carefully trying to preserve the value of the games we develop, the digital distribution revolution could very easily depreciate their value, which might make all of us have a hard time,” he said.(source:gamasutra


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