Digital Media Minute did a post recently about this rising awareness that portable devices will be a huge threat to gaming consoles and the companies that make them. It used to be that whether you were a casual or hardcore gamer, you were pretty much locked into buying a console or playing on your desktop. Either way you were tied to your chair, and you had to pay a price for your games platform. Mobile gaming has effectively a much lower cost. In 2009 the price of higher-end ‘phones’ includes your platform; soon all cellphones will have the functionality.
So now I don’t have to burrow into the XBOX room to indulge myself. Maybe I’d like to play for 10 minutes on the bus rather than making an afternoon of it. Playing on the go will be just another one of the ways that you use the device. Will this make casual gamers out of everyone, and will it marginalize hard core gamers? It seems like portable gaming will at least separate serious gamers from casual users. The real question is: now that playing casually is an option for everyone through their phones, how many of us will shell out money for an experience that is admittedly still superior (in 2009 anyway) to gaming on portables?
Interesting NYT article today on the subject, here.
