As a game device, the iPhone has revolutionized the market, according to BBC NEWS the iPhone and the iPod Touch boasted 30 million users usurping Nintendo’s DS or Sony’s PSP at a similar point in their lives. iPhone was set to become the dominant gaming platform because of the strength of the App Store, however nowadays there are other important markets as well, like Android’s and BB’s.

Gartner estimates 70 percent to 80 percent of all mobile consumer applications downloaded are mobile games. Moreover, 60 percent to 70 percent of these downloaded games are “free.” This trend is expected to continue for the next two to three years.

Some people believe it was the unique features like “multi-touch, and the accelerometer for control what constituted the inflection point, others think that more relevant are the following behavioral facts:

People who didn’t typically play games do so on their smartphones now, and not because of the graphics or the elaborated histories but for their simplicity and the fact that they can instinctively play and distract their minds like they use to do with the crosswords and the Sudoku of the newspapers. This new segment of the video games market is typically called casual gamers, they like an old fashion “arcade style” experience which is short (so they can play in the car, or on the train, in the waiting room) and usually more difficult and intellectually challenging, people now feel clever by playing puzzles and games like bejeweled, tetris or the moron test.

Another important changing trend is the fact that games for video consoles were significantly played mainly by males, now for smartphones there are as well many cute games (like angry birds and plants vs. Zombies) that tend to appeal to girls who are not fan of “traditional” games which because they are designed by men, are mainly focused on male desires (war, women…).

With the launch of the Xperia Play which is the first mobile PlayStation certified phone and the Nokia Kinetic, the fusion with Microsoft’s gaming technology, we will have in our phones very sophisticated histories and good graphics similar to the ones of the consoles, therefore we will be able to see if this boom is due to one reason or the other.

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