Analyst: Handheld Market to Rebound in 2012 due to 3DS and Vita
by William D'Angelo, posted on 18 January 2012 / 930 Views
Analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC) believes that 2012 will be a huge year for the handhelds, due to the next generation handheld race between the 3DS and Vita.
"Given the 3DS price drop in mid-2011 and in light of respectable initial demand for Vita in Japan this past December, it appears that 2012 is shaping up to be a rebound year for dedicated handhelds," said Lewis Ward, IDC's research manager for gaming.
"An interesting piece of this story is what's happening demographically," adds Ward. "The penetration rate of paying gamers is much higher in the child and teen segment for dedicated handhelds than it is for cell phone or media tablet gamers. As long as dedicated handheld OEMs and physical format portable game developers/publishers can hold serve in the demographic niches where they currently have a substantial advantage, I expect their revenue opportunities moving forward to remain substantial."
The number of games downloaded for the iOS and Android might be extremely high, however "only a fraction of those games were paid for and most of those were of the $1 to $3 variety," said Ward. IDC sees the split between dedicated gaming handhelds and phones to move toward phones by less than four percent by 2015.
"Mobile and portable gaming is clearly a positive industry growth area," Ward says. "Since weak macroeconomic conditions are likely to prevail in many key advanced industrial nations over the next few years, much of this growth will likely occur in BRIC nations and a handful of other emerging economies, and be more casual/social cell phone gaming oriented."
