market
PC Gaming Is The Largest Market
3:20AM Mike Fahey | Is PC gaming giving way to today’s more versatile and powerful consoles? Not according to a market study recently conducted by research group JPR, which claims that more gaming PC’s have been sold over the past three years than Xbox 360s, PlayStation 3s, and Wiis combined. The study, which tracks the sales of three different classes of gaming PCs over since Q3 2005, found that 196 million units have been sold between then and Q3 2008, compared to a worldwide total of 74.7 million consoles. As Edge points out, this of course doesn’t take into effect handheld gaming systems like the DS and PSP, which sold a combined 125 million units during the same period. More »
Mobile Games Market Has ‘Flatlined’ – Experts
9:20AM Stuart Houghton | Now hang on a minute. It doesn’t seem like five minutes since some gaggle of market pundits were proclaiming that the iPhone had turned the mobile games market inside out and pointing at developers rolling around in pits of cash like Scrooge McDuck. More »
News
China’s Gaming Market Going Up, Up, Up
3:30AM Maggie Greene | In totally unsurprising news, China’s game market continues to climb — numbers just posted for the second quarter of 2008 show an 11.2% increase over first quarter, and a nearly 66% increase from the same quarter last year (!). In terms of market share, Shanda leads the pack with a 17.9% share, with other big companies hovering below that. The current market is estimated to be worth 4.43 billion yuan (around $US 645 million), and with no predicted slowdowns, one wonders what we’ll be seeing this time next year (or even fourth quarter of ‘08). And with companies like Perfect World making a foray into Western markets, we’ll just have to wait and see where China’s industry is heading long-term. China market: 2Q08 online gaming services valued at 4.43 billion yuan [Digitimes via GamesIndustry.biz] More »
News
China’s FerryGame Hiring Former EA Heavy Hitter
5:40AM Maggie Greene | A number of Chinese companies are nothing if not shrewd — in a smart business move, FerryGame has hired former EA executive producer and Heavy Iron founder Steve Grey to oversee their product lineup and future forays into the MMO/’advanced casual’ market. Ranging from typical MMOs to a music/dance/’catwalk’ game, FerryGame looks like they’re ready to take on some of the big dogs of the domestic Chinese market, and Grey will surely be an asset: More »
Going For the Mass Market: Good News or Bad?
7:30AM Maggie Greene | I’ve read a number of thought-provoking pieces over at Only a Game, and this week Chris Bateman has a meditation up on Nintendo, the ‘mass market,’ moving away from games, and what this could spell for the industry at large. Is it really all it’s cracked up to be? Unlike most of my favourite essays from Bateman, this one is pretty short and digestible — he points out that aggressively pursuing the ‘mass market’ (casual market) is working out splendidly for Nintendo, but he wonders if aggressively targeting that market inherently means moving away from games. And what about the industry at large? Well, that’s not so clear: More »
