Posts from — March 2009

Even more news out now that the 2009 Game Developers Conference (GDC) has wrapped up last week…

As MacRumors reports:

“iPhone dominated the Independent GamesFestival awards in Mobile at GDC winning 6 out of 7 categories. The mobile keynote speech was given by Ngmoco’s CEO Neil Young and was appropriately titled Why the iPhone just changed everything.”

Not that I’m surprised by this after reporting back in December that:

“Apple appears to have struck another chord, this time in gaming. The seamless integration of the App Store, iTunes, and device, coupled with the processing power, motion/touch control, over the air downloads, and location based services seems to have hit the mark.”

For a company that has historically lagged behind in terms of gaming, Apple has finally turned it around and in an area most wouldn’t have expected, mobile.

Additional reading:
- iPhone Users Far More Likely to Download Games and Apps – MacRumors
- Study: iPhone leading the pack in mobile phone gaming – ArsTechnica

Jen and I decided to take a little trip on Saturday to Fountains Abbey in North Yorkshire. London gets all the tourist attention but there really are some great nooks and crannies tucked away up here in the quiet north.

Full photo set on Flickr

 
   
 

Plus I got to practice a bit with my 580EXII Speedlite and my ever patient (not to mention beautiful) model.

I’ve previously written about Apple being a strong competitor to Nintendo’s mobile gaming darling, the DS. In today’s Apple Event about iPhone 3.0, some interesting tidbits came out that shed even more light on the situation.

Specifically, the announcement that over 30 million iPhone OS devices have been sold to date. This is a nice little nugget because Apple rarely itemizes sales figures by SKU. Typically iPhone sales are recorded as iPhones and iPod touches get lumped into the iPod category so there has been much speculation as to what the actual install base for iPhone OS is, and in turn, what the market size for mobile games and other apps is shaping up to be. Back in December, I said: “Assuming a conservative 10-15% of iPods sold are touches accounts for an additional 5 to 8 million gaming devices.” This is likely a bit low as end of year cumulative iPhone sales totaled 17.4M while as of today ‘over’ 30M iPhone OS’s have been sold.

At any rate, it’s now easier to see specifically how iPhone OS stacks up against the DS.

As you can see, the DS still clearly dominates. The iPhone OS however is making inroads and has now grown to around 30% the size of Nintendo’s with no signs of letting up.

With signs also pointing to the App Store becoming a billion dollar property, there’s even more reason for Nintendo to see Apple as a significant competitive threat.

Just a few snaps from our weekend in Barcelona. It was a nice little trip and extra nice to get to catch up with our German friend Christoph, and Greek friends Nikolaos and Maria; truly an international adventure.

Full photo set: on Flickr