Xbox, Playstation and WiiU should watch their backs as more gamers go mobile.
Mobile gaming is the fastest growing segment of the video game market, as revenues are expected to double from $13.2 billion this year to $22 billion in 2015, reports Gartner.
It is thought that this rapid growth has been driven by global mobile sales, which CCS Insights predicted to hit 1.86 billion this year.
Not only that, but these devices are becoming increasingly sophisticated, offering progressively higher quality gaming experiences that aren’t far off the quality of the high-end consoles.
These results have come as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo release their next-generation consoles, to a market that is possibly moving in a new direction when it comes to gaming.
The NDP Group recently reported that 53 per cent of kids a gaming more on a mobile now compared to a year ago.
Brian Blau, research director at Gartner, said: “As mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) continue to grow, the mobile game category will show the biggest growth due to the entertainment value provided by games compared with other app categories.”
The gaming market overall is set to reach $93 billion, and is expected to hit a whopping $111,057 billion in 2015.
The result focus on video game consoles, handheld video games, mobile games, and PC games - with handhelds such as the PSP Vita and Nintendo 3DS and 2DS being the only sector predicted to decline from 18,064 this year to 12,399 in 2015.
A large portion of growth in mobile games has come from emerging markets, who are no longer replacing old PC’s with new ones, but with tablets, and have more access to smartphones than they do handheld games.
Not only that but mobile games are considerably cheaper than those in all other sectors of the market, making it more appealing.
Mr Blau continued: “Moving forward, game developers will need to constantly deliver compelling games as the growth of content and platform choices drives game players in divergent directions.”

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/...billion/022689