You hear a lot of panic about the shrinking console market. Maybe there’s a shrinking console market coming from inside your own home. But whether you read economic forecasters or not, the proof is in the pudding, at the Tokyo Game Show at least: of the 715 games on display this year, 507 are for mobile devices: iOS, Android, and other tablets and smartphones. That’s 71% of the entire show.
This is not so surprising if you’ve kept up with some of our TGS coverage here, where we saw mobile game giant GREE pulling out some of the largest offerings. But it’s different to have actual, cold hard numbers to back up what we’ve long suspected: that PC and console games are fat and nobody loves them. Hold on, I need to go cry.
Here’s the breakdown, courtesy of IGN:
iOS/Android Phones & Tablets: 365
Other smartphones: 142
PlayStation 3: 57
Nintendo 3DS: 34
PC: 32
PSP: 30
PlayStation Vita: 24
Xbox 360: 24
Wii: 5
Wii U: 2
And as a bonus, here’s a breakdown by genre:
Role-playing: 148
Action: 118
Others: 116
Simulation: 96
Online Card Game: 48
Sports: 31
Tactical Role-playing: 24
Card game: 23
Online role-playing: 21
Shooting: 21
Adventure: 14
Puzzle: 11
Racing: 11
Action adventure: 8
So if you’re a smartphone-owning lover of JRPGs, have I got a country for you.
Header image source: VonMan at deviantArt.
