With more than half of us now sporting smartphones, more and more people can purchase and play mobile games. That means you don’t have to own a Nintendo 3DS or PlayStation Vita to game on the go, and new data reveals how exactly that’s hurting the traditional handheld gaming companies.
App Annie and IDC just posted its second quarter “Portable Gaming Spotlight,” which found that consumer spending on games in the App Store and Google Play rose to four times that of handheld consoles.
And for the first time ever, game spending on Google Play alone surpassed handheld game revenue. Games also represented more than 40 percent of app downloads and 70 percent of app revenue in both app stores.
App Annie’s data isn’t straight from the companies, so take this with a grain of salt. It’s still a sign that people are spending more time playing games on their phones than on a 3DS or Vita.
However, hardware and software sales from Nintendo’s 3DS were actually up from the previous quarter, helping the company pad struggling Wii U sales.
On Tuesday, Sony dropped the price of the Vita to $199 in hopes of boosting sales.
