Apple iOS Gaining Handheld Gaming Throne

Oh those people at Apple, they're'a waging war on the world of handheld gaming, of that you can be sure. And it's not just iOS, according to recent research done by a firm by the name of Interpret, mobile phones (all of them, but "particularly the iPhone") are now responsible for around 44% of handheld gaming, up over 50% of what they had last year. On the other hand, use of systems like Nintendo DS or PSP have gone down 13% in the same time period. Questions in this report were aimed at people who owned any kind of handheld gaming device, but also asked those who owned several to answer questions that ended up leading to the fact that nearly 25% of those that use a mobile phone exclusively for gaming have a Nintendo DS and/or PSP but never end up using it.

Courtney Johnson, manager of research and analysis for Interpret, said the following: "The proliferation of highly multifunctional smartphones and messaging phones is a very real threat to the dominance by the DS and PSP of the handheld gaming market, ... Devices which satisfy a variety of entertainment and utility needs are fast outstripping single-function devices as consumer favorites." Statistics surrounding this event have led to Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter saying "We're starting to see DS hardware sales crack, ... I think the ubiquity of the iPod Touch is cutting into the handheld market, I think the PSP was dead on arrival and I think the PSP2 is going to be dead on arrival." He said these monstrous things on a recent episode of Pach Attack.

[Via Ars Technica]