With monstrous growth over the past 12 months, is the iPod Touch set to become the next must have mobile gaming platform?

In a recent earnings call, Apple revealed, though some basic math skills were needed, that the iPod Touch had doubled its sales over the past 12 months. They informed journalists that 7 million multi-touch device users had been added to their user base, and 3.79 million of those were made up of iPhone users. This means that the iPod Touch made up the remaining 3.21 million users. Seeing as how the iTunes app store had a massive spike in app downloads at Christmas 2008, this number is fairly easy to believe.

So how does relate to gaming?  On average, Nintendo sold 7.86 million Nintendo DS units per quarter in 2008.  Seeing as when you add the iPhone and iPod Touch sales together you get 7 million units in one quarter.  Then you note that nearly a third of the 30,000 available applications are games, you can see that the nearly 1 billion downloaded applications adds up to a whole lot of game playing on the devices.  This suddenly thrusts Apple into the mobile gaming arena, and not one that you are sure they anticipated being in.

With iPhone OS 3 due this summer, and some major changes to the SDK (Software Development Kit) that makes app development even easier, you wonder just how many of these new applications will be games versus productivity apps.  It wasn’t until recently that Apple began really pushing the iPod Touch as a gaming alternative when they finally started talking about it in television ads, so who knows where it could be headed now sales wise with that promotional push.

It is assumed that the annual iPod line refresh in the fall will feature a new version of the iPod Touch, but it is unclear what exactly will change with the device that could possibly make it more game friendly.  It is unlikely that the design obsessed company would want to add more physical buttons to the device, so you will be stuck with the one button at the bottom and the accelerometer for movement.  Using a touch screen, while fairly innovative for now, also has its limitations on what can be done in a game.

Even with this “less is more” attitude that Apple has, it doesn’t seem to be stopping from people from turning their shiny gadgets into gaming platforms, it is only a question of when the limits of the system will be discovered.  As for what those limits are, that is anyone’s guess at this point.

Entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm under Uncategorized.  Print This Post