Apple’s iOS may have an App for everything, but its users just want to play games.
A new survey polling iOS device users in Europe and the United States claims that 63 million iOS gamers are downloading 5 million games every day.
Though 88 percent of those downloads are free games, they still account for a huge amount of revenue. 40 percent of iOS gaming revenue is currently generated by downloadable content purchases made from within games. By the latter half of this year, DLC is expected to account for the majority of iOS gaming revenue.
Of the aforementioned 5 million daily game downloads, 90 percent are pulled down by iPhone and iPod Touch users. The more recently released iPad accounts for 9 percent of that figure, while Apple’s line of Mac computers makes up the remaining 1 percent.
Those percentages seem to correlate directly to how recently each device made App downloads available to the public. The iPhone has offered App downloads since its 2007 launch, the iPad since its launch in April of last year, and Apple’s computers since the launch of the Mac App Store in January.
As if to drive home the point that Apple’s iOS gadgets are viable mobile gaming options, the survey even points out that the number of people playing games on the iPad alone (15 million Americans and 7 million Europeans) is greater than those gaming on Sony’s PSP.
No conclusions are drawn by the survey itself — that’s not really how those things work — but I think it’s pretty obvious that Apple deserves praise for the massive success it’s had in breaching the seemingly impenetrable handheld gaming space. It’s got a ways to go before Nintendo starts fretting for the 3DS’ market position, but considering the computer giant has managed all this in less than half a decade, it’s quite impressive.
