Apple gains 19% share of portable gaming market, 5% of everything

Flurry's got lots of new data this week -- earlier, we heard that 44% of apps coming to the iPad are going to be games, and now they're saying that Apple is making huge headway into the gaming market overall. According to the latest numbers, the iPhone OS has nabbed 15% of the mobile game market away from bigger handhelds like the Nintendo DS and the PSP, and the iPhone itself has actually claimed 5% of the worldwide video game market. That's pretty astounding. In just a few years, the iPhone has picked up a sizeable amount of share in one of the biggest markets in the world, and Apple has done it all while actually selling the device as a smartphone.

What's even more amazing is that Apple has done all of this without actually making a single game themselves (Update: Reader Sunny reminds me that they made one). Video game console manufacturers have long had to deal with the relationship between first-party and third-party games -- Nintendo, especially, has struggled with getting their third-party software up to snuff. For Apple, however, there is no first-party; they just open up the App Store and let the sales fly.

Of course, that drum beating you hear in the distance is the iPad. While Apple has, again, focused on productivity and media rather than gaming, there's no question at all that a bigger touchscreen can, and will, create a whole new experience for gamers. The iPhone has come a long way in the past year and a half, but I'd expect the iPad to take an even bigger bite out of the game industry after all is said and done.

[via iPhone Savior]
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