EA boss John Riccitello has said the iPad is the company's fastest growing platform.
Thanks to app stores and mobile games like Cut the Rope and Plants vs. Zombies, mobile gaming has become a huge market and it's one that's growing at an extremely fast pace. Even big name developers are taking mobile gaming seriously. In fact, EA says the iPad is its fastest growing platform.
Speaking during an interview with IndustryGamers, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello said that consoles currently only account for 40 percent of the games industry and that the iPad is the fastest growing platform. While discussing the regularity of console refreshes (in particular, whether or not Nintendo is 'off-cycle' with the rest of the industry because of the Wii U), Riccitello said the length and timing of these refresh cycles is no longer as relevant because consoles are not the dominant force in gaming.
"Consoles used to be 80 percent of the industry as recently as 2000," he told IndustryGamers. "Consoles today are 40 percent of the game industry, so what do we really have? We have a new hardware platform and we’re putting out software every 90 days. Our fastest growing platform is the iPad right now and that didn’t exist 18 months ago," he continued. "So the idea that we’re categorizing the industry as being [cyclical]... Nintendo is off cycle with what? I mean, the point of reference is gone."
The advent of the iPad has led to an explosion for mobile gaming, for sure. The fact that Angry Birds' publisher Rovio is collaborating with 20th Century Fox and has the capacity to push out updates for every major holiday and season is a testament to how lucrative and strong the market really is. To ignore mobile gaming completely would be a bad call, but is EA right to be putting so much stock in mobile gaming? Let us know what you think in the comments below!
And they dare call it "gaming"... mindless tapping on the touchscreen. No storyline, no skill, no graphics - and yet this "gaming" receives a lot of investments and is a fastest growing platform, I'm pretty sure it is accurate... where is this world going? People prefer to waste their time on throwing birds at pigs on $500+ toys more than anything else.
I hope that we'll at least keep getting new PC titles... even if they're console ports, I don't mind, just keep making them and don't let the gaming degrade even further - from consoles to tablets. What's next, back to Tetris?
They can burn in hell...
And they dare call it "gaming"... mindless tapping on the touchscreen. No storyline, no skill, no graphics - and yet this "gaming" receives a lot of investments and is a fastest growing platform, I'm pretty sure it is accurate... where is this world going? People prefer to waste their time on throwing birds at pigs on $500+ toys more than anything else.
I hope that we'll at least keep getting new PC titles... even if they're console ports, I don't mind, just keep making them and don't let the gaming degrade even further - from consoles to tablets. What's next, back to Tetris?
I will get either a 720 or PS4 after thoroughly looking at both of them. Until that day my PS3 and Q9650/GTX 560Ti has years of service left.
I'm through with Apple too, when my Macbook pro decides to give up the ghost I'm going back to Ubuntu.
My grand kids like throwing birds at pigs. Only they do it on the big screen with an air mouse. I wouldn't pay that kind of money for a closed system.
I'm confident that both gamers and producers will adapt to this trend and that we'll continue to see both kind of games (fun time-wasters and full productions) on the market.
They cut on everything.
Support totally sucks.
1 month ago, they tell me they'll a disk FOR FIX THEIR MISTAKE.
I don't have received it.
They cry baby about Steam, surely, they also try to stole the idea with Origin and NO GAME in Origin. What the point!
So TALK BIG when you'll be able to contains your support and your complains!!!
The question is not if it will happen in this sector too, its more about where they will turn after that?
It's all jokes, right? We've had a lot of fun, now you'll get back to supporting good games again and 'ambition' won't be a taboo any longer, right? ...right?
(I understand... 'dumbing down' is financially a very good choice. Is there anything we gamers can do to make companies make better and more ambitious games? I mean, we should be able to do SOMETHING, but looking at franchises like CoD and AC, and perhaps most franchises nowadays, it really seems the money is better invested in marketing than in ambition... not only does it sell better, gamers and game critics alike seem to prefer it that way.)
To say gaming isn't missing about , oh, 3 yrs, almost of it to say on some ideas and concepts are probably give and take, but of issues of concerns elsewhere think has had a place relevence, perhaps.
Still of many things that do find a way to try too make a difference for things of difference makes the difference. PC are not the only things that have say "video gaming" applications.
Rather to say of what has been a place of interest though, is anyones guess, yes?
But again it is ideas of interest at times. And with Bigger companies it is to lose one for one, yes? Maybe that is backwards some but still.
And with the Ipad on an "idea" of many interests, why not find the place for them, if there is more then one for "video gaming" . If video gaming pretain to only one kind of interest, there probably wouldn't be many platforms of interest to work with. But is still hard saying or telling really sometimes.
Once the hardcore market players overcome the middleman of the game controller and device a way for people to instantly understand and jump into the gameplay, then you'll have a lot more growth on the console side. Similar to what Nintendo did when the Wii just launched.
Go EA!
Do whatever you can so you can keep funding BioWare/DICE so they can continue to make incredible games! ;p
They can burn in hell...
Do whatever you can so you can keep funding BioWare/DICE so they can continue to make incredible games! ;p
You know, I might just agree with you... nothing delivers as much as BioWare. If they have to release 1000 crappy tablet games in order to fund another kick-ass series from BioWare, why not?
Are there enough stupid people out there playing mindless games for hours on end to make this so profitable? That makes my opinion of humanity in general even worse.