David Gosen, CEO of mobile firm I-Play, says that mobile gaming needs to avoid the console trap of creating games for a niche market that grows slowly.
In an interview with mobileindustry.biz, Gosen said, “Mobile has a tremendous opportunity to break out of what is a console niche environment for gaming. Over the last 25 years, 250 million consoles and handheld devices have been sold, but every year, 800 million mobile phones get sold. Tell me which one is mass market?”
Hinting at barriers of entry for the mass market into console gaming, Gosen went on to say, “I think all stake holders who really understand this business need to ensure that they do create the broadest possible offering for the mass market and don’t fall into the trap that the console industry has fell in, whereby they it just creates games for a niche.”
The mobile market has been an increasingly tantalizing goal for developers looking for lower cost development options versus the traditional consoles made all the more viable as mobile technology improves. With a far broader base of potential customers, and the vast success of ringtones, the return potential of mobile gaming has always seemed as large as, if not much larger than, that of console development.
