据bloomberg报道，随着iPhone逐渐被游戏玩家采纳，任天堂和索尼等游戏机制造商销量受到了影响。当游戏玩家想要玩一款视频游戏的时候，他首先拿起的很有可能是iPhone。

bloomberg iphone

现在不少年轻人已经开始回避使用索尼PSP、任天堂DS等手持游戏机，他们更喜欢使用智能手机玩网络游戏以及其它游戏。这一趋势影响了专业游戏机的销售。22岁的游戏玩家Max Batch每个月在手机游戏上花费大约2欧元，他说，“不值得去买一个手持游戏机。我有一部iPhone，当我想玩有戏的时候，就会去苹果应用商店下载一些。”

由于相比游戏机有更好的图形处理能力，智能手机正不断侵吞任天堂和索尼占主导地位的游戏机市场。市场研究机构iSuppli上个月称，今年具有游戏功能的手机出货量将增长11.4%至127万部。iSuppli研究员Pamela Tufegdzic称，“随着休闲游戏主导市场，iPhone开始抢夺传统DS和PSP的销售收入，未来这一趋势还将进一步延续。”

iPad带来的威胁

苹果iPad将是是另外一个威胁，随着该平板电脑的热销，东芝、三星、RIM等公司都将推出类似的设备，游戏机制造商将面临更激烈的竞争。

EA首席运营官John Schappert在接受采访时表示，“在手持设备平台和移动设备之间的竞争的确在不断升温，我认为在iPad、iPhone以及Android设备身上，这一故事还将继续。”多用途功能使智能手机成为年轻玩家的首选。

微软EMEA互动娱乐部门副总裁Chris Lewis称，“在很多国家，手机是人们第一个接触到的数字化媒体设备，甚至早于PC。”

Windows Phones

热销游戏机Xbox360的制造商微软最近希望通过其Windows Phone 7操作系统吸引更多喜欢在手机上玩游戏的玩家。与此同时，手机游戏的蓬勃发展也促使软件制造商向新的部门倾斜。比如，Max and the Magic Marker等原先仅在游戏机上出现的游戏现在也准备出现在Windows 7手机上。

微软已经宣布了50款可运行于Windows Phone 7的游戏，Windows Phone 7大约在10月发布。总部位于加利福尼亚州的苹果公司已经出货1.2亿台运行iOS操作系统的设备，包括iPhone、iPad以及iPod Touch。本月初，该公司为该操作系统添加了“游戏中心”功能，将支持多人游戏。

When Max Batch wants to play a video game, he turns to his Apple Inc. iPhone.

The 22-year-old German has shunned hand-held consoles such as Sony Corp.’s PSP and Nintendo Co.’s DS, joining a growing number of people who use their smartphones for online and other games, eroding sales of the dedicated handsets.

“It’s not worth having a hand-held,” said Batch, who spends about 2 euros a month on mobile-phone games and tried out Sony’s Playstation Portable at the Gamescom fair in Cologne, Germany, last month. “I have an iPhone and when I want to play, I download something from the app store.”

With more processing power and better graphics than their predecessors, smartphones are eating into the market dominated by Nintendo and Sony. Shipments of game-capable mobile phones are set to rise 11.4 percent to 1.27 billion this year, researcher iSuppli said last month, while those of video-game consoles may be little changed at 52.3 million and portable units may drop 2.5 percent to 38.9 million.

“With casual gaming dominating the market, the iPhone is starting to give the traditional hand-held DS and PSP models a run for their money and will likely continue into the future,” iSuppli researcher Pamela Tufegdzic said. Revenue from hand-held gaming units is estimated to be little changed between $5 billion and $6 billion this year, iSuppli said.

IPad Threat

Apple’s iPad is another threat. With the success of the tablet computer prompting companies such as Toshiba Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. and Research In Motion Ltd. to develop similar devices, console makers may be set for more competition.

“There’s certainly increased competition between the hand- held platforms and the mobile devices,” John Schappert, chief operating officer of Electronic Arts Inc., said in an interview. “I think there’s going to be incredible growth happening on the iPad and the iPhone and the Android devices.” Android is Google Inc.’s operating platform.

The multi-purpose capabilities of mobile phones are making them the platform of choice for young gamers.

“In some countries the first digital entertainment device that people there might touch is a mobile phone rather than a PC,” Chris Lewis, vice president of Microsoft Corp.’s EMEA Interactive Entertainment Business, said in an interview.

Windows Phones

Microsoft, the maker of the best-selling Xbox360 console, doesn’t have a dedicated hand-held device. It now wants to attract players on the move with games on phones that use its Windows Phone 7 operating system.

The boom in mobile-phones games is prompting software makers to adopt existing games to the new market segment.

Some games, such as “Max and the Magic Marker” from the Danish studio Press Play ApS have their roots in the console and hand-held market and will now be available on the Windows 7 Phone, Matt Booty, general manager of Microsoft’s mobile game studios, said in an interview.

“A lot of children have hand-me-down phones as opposed to having dedicated portables like the DS or the PSP,” Booty said. “We definitely see that as a potential target market where we would like to compete.”

Microsoft has announced 50 games titles that will be available when Windows Phone 7, scheduled for release in October, becomes available.

Game Center

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, has shipped more than 120 million devices that run its iOS operating system, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. The company earlier this month added a Game Center feature to the operating system that offers multiplayer games.

Mobile phones on which users can potentially play games made up 93 percent of all games hardware in 2009, while consoles accounted for 3 percent, according to iSuppli. Still, hand-helds had a 67.1 percent share of the worldwide games software market in 2009 with the rest for mobile phones.

Hand-helds still have the advantage of buttons and specific gaming capabilities, while smartphone games are usually played with less accurate touchscreen controls, executives at the console makers say.

Comparing smartphones to hand-helds “is like comparing apples with oranges” and the current development of handset sales isn’t connected to the rise of smartphones, said Bernd Fakesch, Nintendo’s general manager in Germany. “It has to do with the Nintendo DS having reached a market penetration that has never been seen before for any console.”

‘World of Games’

DS hardware sales fell 47 percent to 3.15 million players in the three months ended June 30, while software sales dropped 23 percent to 22.4 million units, Nintendo said July 30. Mobile game consoles accounted for 27 percent of revenue last year, making them the company’s biggest sales generator.

“The hand-helds will continue to be successful if they bring something different and more interesting for gamers,” said Yves Guillemot, chief executive officer of Ubisoft Entertainment, Europe’s biggest video-game producer.

Brian Farrell, CEO of wrestling video games publisher THQ Inc., said a good example is Nintendo’s 3-D version of the DS hand-held, which has a 3-D screen that doesn’t require users to wear special glasses.

Some executives say the discussion about whether mobile phones and tablet computers will usurp traditional gaming consoles and hand-helds is misleading, as phone games may help to expand the total computer-games market.

“If even a small percentage of the casual gamers say that this is something I really like and enjoy, some may go out and buy a PlayStation 3,” said Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony’s Networked Products & Services Group. Mobile-phone games may be a “good way to get people into the world of games.” (source:bloomberg/techweb)