Exactly. The hardcore PC/console gaming crowd is in for an unwelcome wake up call: the future of gaming is mobile. In fact, it isn't even limited to the future, it's already happening.
I think it's fair to say that devices like the iPhone and iPad will be seen as the originators of this revolution. So maybe that group of avid enthusiasts is a little more insightful than the author is willing to give them credit for.
I agree: mobile gaming is the wave of the future. But if you want to know who has affected gaming most since its inception, the answer's pretty much got to be Shigeru Miyamoto.
The problem with this poll is that it works just like "greatest movies of all time" polls. People have the attention span of mayflies.
Agree completely with you. And to my shame, I didn't read the poll question well enough. I had thought it was about what had the greatest impact in the last 15 years or so.
But given that the responses were:
iPhone: 17%
Wii: 7%
Xbox Live: 3%
PlayStation One: 3%
Steam: 2%
All of those are relatively modern. I would easily put the original Nintendo and/or Gameboy before most of those. The poll question is terrible and the respondents have too short a perspective.
Then again, if you're an avid fan and/or professional, you ought to be polled on things looking forward. Much respect to the original game developers, but anyone who is in the industry today who is going to focus on the great accomplishments in the 8-bit era are going to find themselves in the same trouble as Nintendo's current revenue trend.
As of March this year, Apple sold 100 million iPhones.
So let's put things in perspective, Nintendo is an absolutely amazing company in the gaming space and has outsold all their competitors (with the exception of Sony PS2) and has sold far more than Apple across their product lines. I am not saying mobile gaming isn't huge (And perhaps handhelds like GameBoy/DS/PSP should be given their credit here), but to give Apple and Steve Jobs credit for shaping the gaming industry more than the real titans of gaming who have actively shaped it for 20 years? Bullshit.
You can't properly compare sales numbers between two products whose major purpose is quite different. Nintendo's products are for gaming only, they serve very little purpose otherwise. Every one of those was sold as a gaming unit. Most people bought their iPhones for purposes other than gaming. Sure, a large number, if not all, of iPhones users play games on their device but that's not a fair comparison since that wasn't always the reason for the sale. The fact that Nintendo has sold so many devices with one purpose as compared to the iPhone which has far more uses is the impressive part to me.
It's close to the same logic that a pirated game equates to a lost sale, which it does not.
I don't think the product's purpose is as relevant as how the product is actually used. If we want to take it to another extreme, I have an iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch as well as a Wii, Playstation and Xbox. Guess which three are used to play games every day and which have not been used for anything in over a year.
What I meant by the piracy analogy is that you are assuming.
I'm not exactly comparing their purposes but the reasons people buy them. To do a proper comparison you would have to ask every single iOS device owner if they bought the thing for games, as the main reason for the purchase, to compare them with a device that is only good for gaming. You cannot assume to compare purchase numbers between two devices if people buy them for different reasons even if some features of the two products overlap.
It's the same comparison that people keep doing with PCs and consoles. Everybody buys a console for gaming (which is slowly changing, granted) while not everyone who buys a PC does so for gaming.
Mostly disagree. For comparison purposes how the device is actually used is much more indicative than what the buyer thought the primary purpose would be at purchase time.
In fact, I think that apple base turned 100-250 million folks into casual gamers is more influential than yet another console.
But it seems to me you are assuming again. You are assuming how they are using the device. With Nintendo's products you are not assuming, you know what they are using it for.
I don't think I'm getting my point across very well. I'm not disputing that a large number of people use their iOS devices for gaming, which is good.
I'm just saying that you cannot necessarily compare two devices on a 1-to-1 basis using sales numbers if the two devices are not comparable 1-to-1 in their usage. The iOS devices are versatile in nature and are suitable for multiple tasks. It's not proper to compare every single sale of an iOS device against every single sale of Nintendo's products. You can make estimates and guesses but I don't feel a 1-to-1 comparison can be made nor be fair.
To make a comparison like this I'd rather know the numbers of game titles sold per device. That comparison works for me because the purpose of buying the game is to play it, nothing else.
I specifically did not make a 1-to-1 relation on sales, instead stating "the number who play games on the device". I subsequently put up a range so large (100-250 million) that it'd be hard to call it an assumption.
"to claim Apple was wildly more influential seems flawed by the numbers."
I didn't. My message is to please use recent figures for the entire platform, not old sales numbers for just iPhones. Also, nowadays Apple sells more iOS devices than Nintendo sells handhelds and consoles. Nintendo and Sony had a head start, they've been passed by Apple in just four years.
I never really understood comparing those numbers anyway. As impressive as iPhone sales are, they're not all used for games. Every DS/PSP/3DS were sold with the intention of playing games on. Gaming on my iPhone is terrible, IMHO. Angry Birds can be entertaining, but any comparable game to what I play on the DS is just too frustrating to play on a touch screen-only device.
From my observations, facebook has had a much larger impact on gaming than iPhone has. I have plenty of older relatives that'll tend to a virtual farm on facebook but won't play games on their phones.
"the answer's pretty much got to be Shigeru Miyamoto"
No it doesn't have to be. Miyamoto is unquestionably the most innovative game designer but Apple really changed the industry from magic in a box to hey the 16 year old down the street just made $10,000 with a game he made by himself.
The future of casual gaming, sure. That’s already true, I would say. However, there are a lot of games that are far better suited to be played on a couch or sitting in a nice comfy chair with a mouse and keyboard, and PCs/consoles are much better suited for that. If anything, the iPhone and iPad have only stolen the market from portable devices like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP. “Real” consoles are hardly threatened.
I definitely agree. Casual gaming has its place, but hardcore gamers and consoles have a market that is no way threatened by gaming on portable devices.
While, Angry birds and Zynga brought large sections of population into gaming, their involvement in hardcore gaming is still minimal. I will possibly be downvoted for this, but the amount of research that has been contributed by hardcore game development companies far surpasses the amount that casual game developers have produced. There is a visible differentiator between the two segments of gaming - and it will probably always be there.
Mobile and online casual games have been pulling in very impressive profits for the last 3-4 years while many companies have seen console and PC retail profits decrease in the same period. The demand for hardcore games isn't being threatened but the supply might face harder competition for funds with casual games now.
"Might" as in I don't know how these AAA game publishers are organised internally. If the console division of Capcom sees decreased profits while the mobile division sees increased profits [1], does that mean that people and capital can get reallocated from the console division to the mobile division?
If we're going to be talking about the future, that doesn't necessarily mean that Apple won't enter the hardcore market some day. After all, it's all up to the developers and game studios, and with everything merging into the living room, it's a real possibility.
I can believe that a larger proportion of gaming will be on mobile devices, but I see it as more of a swinging pendulum than a revolution. You had the same wave of "mobile revolution in gaming!" articles in the tech press in 1989, when the Game Boy was released, and it did indeed have a significant effect on the game industry and game design. Kind of waned for a bit, now is back.
The tech wasn't ready yet but everyone could see it back then. It may not be ready now but it's really close. I would give the console one more generation of dominance before everything is upended.
Well, I'm a PC gamer and I have to say that I cannot possibly see myself playing the majority of the games I play now on a phone with no solid control scheme and a 4" screen. Touch screens do not play well with non-casual games. I've tried some of the cute RTS games available for my Android phone and they're practically unplayable because my finger obscures my view of the screen.
Now, if you're saying that at some point in the future I'll be using my phone for gaming by plugging it into my TV via HDMI and using a keyboard/mouse combo via USB or Bluetooth, then sure. But at that point it's no different than what I'm doing now.
I think it's fair to say that devices like the iPhone and iPad will be seen as the originators of this revolution. So maybe that group of avid enthusiasts is a little more insightful than the author is willing to give them credit for.