iPhone driving mobile gaming boom
Smartphones overshadow thick-phones.
Owners of the sleek iPhone accounted for 14 per cent of all mobile gaming downloads across the US during November 2008, according to a comScore report.
Smartphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry now account for a third of all mobile gaming downloads in America, comScore reckons. And the number of games downloaded for the devices during November 2008 was nearly triple that of the previous year, although that isn't too surprising since the iTunes App Store launched last year as well.
Furthermore, a whopping 32.4 per cent of those polled admitted downloading a game for their iPhone. That dwarfs the market average of 3.8 per cent. This performance helped the entire US mobile gaming market grow by 17 per cent, despite a 14 per cent dip from thick-phones.
Helping this uptake are a stable of tip-top games for iPhone: you may have heard us bang on about Rolando and Drop7 very recently.
Support from major games publishers is growing too, with Metal Gear Solid heading to iphone, and developers like id Software eyeing the platform.