The verge has some pretty nice charts to prove everyone who thinks that AAA 3DS gaming and $2.00 Iphone gaming are a different market wrong. The second chart very clearly shows a gain in iPhone throughout the years, gaining almost the same amount of marketshare that Nintendo has lost on their systems. Yesterday I posted about analysts getting worried about Nintendo's recent numbers, and surely this can't help. It seems the press is steamrolling the company as of late, and I say they need to make big news soon or else they face the risk of being too late to the competition.

APPLE SOLD MORE IPHONES IN THE LAST QUARTER THAN NINTENDO EVER SOLD HANDHELDS IN A YEAR DURING ITS PEAK

That decline in dedicated handheld sales is scary, so does this mean Nintendo should be making a phone? I don't get it, what's with the iPhone being so much better than any handheld gaming machine, is convenience really THAT powerful?

Nintendo is in a tough place because they don't want to get into a market where the bottom has already fallen out of it and the dedicated gaming handheld's days are probably numbered.

Yes, convenience is powerful. To have a compact device that fits a user's needs all in one is very attractive. Having a separate device that is primarily for gaming is not really something that the mass market wants to carry around.
 
I still love my 3DS, though. It's just that I'm saddened to see that in the near future dedicated handhelds will be obsolete.

Yes. especially people with kids. I was at a wedding and a woman with a young child (infant basically) was wining. She just pulled out her iphone and he instantly shut up. Replacing the need for another device that would also do this.

I think that the people that have been buying handhelds in the past were to preoccupy children. If its that much more convenient to just hand over the phone we all already carry around with a couple cheap time wasters on them then which makes more sense? Spending hundreds on a thing dedicated to do this, or something most of us already carry around on the daily?

Especially in these times its just that simple; to me anyway.

as the article stated "correlation need not necessarily mean causation". i think the iPhone market is just expanding far beyond game players, which is the reason for the dramatic upswing in sales. my 64 year old father just bought an iPhone but certainly isn't in the market for a 3DS, as he hasn't played a video game since humoring his young sons in about 1987.

lol

I would just look at total phone sales. Remember, this thing is a phone. I am sure if you just include nokia phones and motorola for the years the iphone started, it would be blown away. I know it is not the same, but I really really doubt anyone buys an iPhone for the games. it is a contributing factor and may be why someone doesn't buy a 3DS. Also, yes, the hardware is that powerful now.

Do people realize that you don't buy a phone to play games?

edit: the guy above me does.

@BestUsernameEver: Oh look The Verge is doing speculative financial journalism with bogus data and pretty graphs. I guess we should all accept that Home Hifi manufacturers need to be concerned because iPhones can play music too and so can cars and there are more iphones and cars than there are home hifis! Oh shit, did you know there are more computers than consoles too? THE CONSOLE MARKET IS DOOMED.

I've got a graph too (that's Billions of dollars on the left):

"Buried in reams of financial data is the revelation that Nintendo have 812.8 billion Yen (£6.7/$10.5 billion) in the bank - enough for it to take a 20 billion Yen loss (£163/$257 million) every year until 2052. Then there's almost 469 billion Yen (£3.8/$6.0 billion) held in premises, equipment and investments. When that runs out - we're in the year 2075 by this point - they've got some of the most valuable intellectual property in gaming to sell off before the company goes out of business."

Source

I'm not worried about Nintendo.

Plus, the iPhone is a god damned smart phone, not a dedicated gaming device. Of course it sold more. I bet it sold more than the PSP and Vita too.

I bought an iPhone for many reasons, and gaming was not one of them.

But then again mobile gaming does not seem appealing to me.

Because everyone who purchases an iPhone got it for games. Yep...

@UitDeToekomst said:

"correlation need not necessarily mean causation".

Somebody who actually gets it! It surprises me to no end how many people don't realize this.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/correlation-or-causation-12012011-gfx.html

yeah i would not worry yet Nintendo is still doing Nintendo and the iphone is still a phone first which is why sells will be higher. The issue is all-in-one media devices are slowing sales but its not a one to one thing. 3DS will only get better the only thing up in the air is if we will see next gen handhelds or if they will be very different then what we know now to keep up with the times.

I will also say price is a big factor in this to handheld prices need to come down if they continue to only focus on games or it need to be more fully functional to stand up to all in one devices when it comes to price/value breakdown.

@DarthOrange said:

@UitDeToekomst said:

"correlation need not necessarily mean causation".

Somebody who actually gets it! It surprises me to no end how many people don't realize this.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/correlation-or-causation-12012011-gfx.html

indeed:

Homer Simpson: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm

Lisa Simpson: That’s specious reasoning, Dad.

Homer: Thank you, dear.

Lisa: By your logic I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.

Homer: Oh, how does it work?

Lisa: It doesn’t work.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: It’s just a stupid rock.

Homer: Uh-huh.

Lisa: But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?

Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

@SeriouslyNow said:

@BestUsernameEver: Oh look The Verge is doing speculative financial journalism with bogus data and pretty graphs. I guess we should all accept that Home Hifi manufacturers need to be concerned because iPhones can play music too and so can cars and there are more iphones and cars than there are home hifis! Oh shit, did you know there are more computers than consoles too? THE CONSOLE MARKET IS DOOMED.

If you don't agree, don't agree, patronizing doesn't help your case.

I've no doubt it's having an impact, but that chart doesn't make the case. People buy phones because they want phones. The iPhone is really popular. You will see hige sales of the iPhone. But jist because someone buys an iPhone doesn't mean they're going to play games on it. Other than telephony, you don't know what people are doing with these things. Some will game, but a lot of people won't.

@TheHBK said:

I would just look at total phone sales. Remember, this thing is a phone. I am sure if you just include nokia phones and motorola for the years the iphone started, it would be blown away. I know it is not the same, but I really really doubt anyone buys an iPhone for the games. it is a contributing factor and may be why someone doesn't buy a 3DS. Also, yes, the hardware is that powerful now.

I think the bigger side of this story is the rapid decline of gaming heldheld system sales since 2007, the same year the iPhone came out.

I'm not worried.

Its official Mario has been replaced by Birds.

@BestUsernameEver said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

@BestUsernameEver: Oh look The Verge is doing speculative financial journalism with bogus data and pretty graphs. I guess we should all accept that Home Hifi manufacturers need to be concerned because iPhones can play music too and so can cars and there are more iphones and cars than there are home hifis! Oh shit, did you know there are more computers than consoles too? THE CONSOLE MARKET IS DOOMED.

If you don't agree, don't agree, patronizing doesn't help your case.

When The Verge patronises me with bullshit stats and builds a case around them I think it's fair to return the favour. And anyway I was using my bullshit stats to illustrate their failure to report honestly.

@DarthOrange said:

@UitDeToekomst said:

"correlation need not necessarily mean causation".

Somebody who actually gets it! It surprises me to no end how many people don't realize this.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/correlation-or-causation-12012011-gfx.html

This. It's fucked that people still don't get this basic lesson in reasoning.

People buy the iPhone for more than just games. That's the problem with handhelds a smart phone can do so much more I mean you can go online with the 3ds but it's browser is crap most smartphone have somewhat competent browsers. As far as I can tell my 3ds can't text or make phone calls either. It just makes sense for a phone to outsell a handheld. And as the phones become more and more powerful handheld gaming is probably going to transition to phones entirely at some point. I still can't see phone or tablet games over taking consoles seeing as touch screens are horrid to play games on.

So I can make a phone call with my 3DS nice :)

@BestUsernameEver: Handheld sales arent falling because of the iphone. They're falling because handhelds keep getting more expensive and less compelling, in my opinion. Speaking only for myself, portable consoles stopped being appealing when they stopped offering me experiences I couldn't get anywhere else and started to cost as much as a PS3. The Vita touts itself as something of a Portable PS3, much like the PSP was a Portable PS2. I have a PS3. I do not want to rebuy those games on a new console that is only portable in the most liberal sense of the word. It's the same reason I never bought a PSP.

At the end of the day, Iphone is another gaming platform and people purchase gaming platforms for the games. The success of the 360 does not equate to the failure of the PS3, after all. My house has an iphone, android, kindle fire, PS3, 360, Wii, DS, 3DS and PSP. People buy whatever they have to buy to play the games they want to play. Also, as many have said, the majority of people that buy smart phones do not do so to play games. That'd be like buying a PS3 just to stream Netflix. There are just too many better and cheaper alternatives out there for that to make sense.