This year, it's all about iPhone in the handheld gaming world. After some initial agnosticism, publishers are throwing themselves into it with vigour, and some of them - EA, Gameloft, Digital Chocolate - are making a lot of money out of it.
However, Everybody's Favourite Analyst Michael Pachter has issued some words of warning to publishers during an appearance on
Bonus Round.
"I think the iPod touch is the most dangerous thing that ever happened to the publishers, ever."
What brings Pachter to this conclusion? The sticky issue of App Store pricing, of course, the effects of which may not be felt with their full force until the current generation of kids grows up.
"It's going to be a different audience, it's going to be young kids because iPod Touch is USD 199 this Christmas, it'll be USD 149 next year, USD 129. When it's USD 99, every nine year old kid is going to have one of those instead of a DS or a PSP, and if you train kids that this is the game that you want to play... How about
Tetris? Why would you pay USD 20 for
Tetris when you can get it for USD 6.99 or USD 3.99 on iPod touch?"
While we in the blogosphere have learned to take the pronouncements of analysts with a pinch of salt, this one seems very plausible - I'm already loath to pay more than £2 for an app. How about you?
GamesIndustry.biz
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