ANALYSIS: Are smart devices killing the console?

62 per cent of the British population now own a smartphone and 29.3 per cent a tablet.
In fact, in the latest data, smartphones accounted for 83 per cent of all mobile sales, demonstrating their growing dominance.
There has been much debate recently about consumers’ interaction with smart devices, with most people not using their phones or tablets to the max. However, what is clear is the ‘smart generation’ is increasingly using these portable devices for gaming.
40.7 per cent of mobile owners use their phones for gaming, up from 32.6 per cent in 2011. This has meant that 3.9 per cent of games are now bought for smart devices – an increase of 1.2 percentage points over the past year. And this looks set to rise.
In the past year, the number of games bought for phones and tablets has increased by 11.7 per cent. This contrasts markedly with the 27.1 per cent decline we have seen in sales of physical games over the same period.
Growth is, in the main, being driven by the increasing number of smart device shoppers, with a quarter more consumers entering this market in the past year.

"In the past year, the number of games bought
for phones and tablets has increased by
11.7 per cent. This contrasts markedly with
the 27.1 per cent decline we have seen in
sales of physical games over
the same period."

For developers this is good news. New customers contributed an extra 360,000 games sales in the 24 weeks ending February 17th and are the main reason this part of the market is flourishing. Continuing to appeal to new customers will be crucial going forward, particularly as there are signs that current customers are buying less when compared
to last year.
Existing shoppers bought 239,000 fewer games over the latest 24-week period compared with last year. It may be that this group moved towards free games rather than downloading fewer paid-for apps, something not captured in these figures.
We expect smartphone penetration to increase, which means there will be a larger potential pool of customers to target for mobile gaming.
These shopper behaviours are obviously interesting for those developing content for smart devices. But what are the implications for the wider games market?
The latest data shows that there is a close link between the shoppers buying gaming apps and traditional gamers using consoles.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/analy...onsole/0115404