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Comparing with PSP and NDS,iPhone has developed rapidly in the field of video games. According to the latest statistics from ComScore, the number of iPhone users who download mobile game is about 10 times compared to the ones use other smartphones—about 34% of iPhone users ever downloaded games, while the proportion in other smartphone users is only 3.4%. And the download number of iPhone users occupied 14% in last year total volume.

As a matter of fact, this is not news. At the beginning of iPhone release, Apple Inc. was on the intention to step into the portable video games market. With the virtual online App Store, users can purchase games very easily and download to their own iPhones, no need to buy discs or cartridges. The screen resolution is 480*320. Its excellent performance enables it match with PSP in visual effect. The function of Multi-touch and Gsensor produce similar effect with NDS. As iPod Touch launched, Apple made it as “ The funnest iPod ever”. Its gameplay, operation and abundant applications (games, software) support, all greatly shocked its competitors and the whole industry.

Although iPhone occupied 14% on the mobile games market, compared to PSP & NDS current market share, iPhone has a long way to go. Some classic games like Silent Hill, Need For Speed Undercover, etc. has been played on iPhone, but lots of games played on iPhone are still Zuma’s kind.

Sony and Nintendo use traditional model for promoting their products, at the same time, they try to use Eshop for releasing new games. PS eshop sells PSP and PS3, while Wii and DS own a shopping channel–Ware.

During the global economic crisis period, the development of vedio games industry is still promising. Perhaps this is one reason why Apple steps into handheld console market. Let’s wait and see whether iPhone will occupy the similar market share with PSP and NDS, or not!.

The most backward games market: Japan

According to the US, European and Japanese market research agencies—NPD, GfK and Enterbrain’s annual joint research that on the top three games markets, the total sales of console games in the US, UK and Japan markets has reached 409,900,000. Compared to 367,700,000 of 2007, it increased by 11%.

And, the sales increased 15% in American market, 26% in Britain, but reduced 13% in Japan. It’s noticeable that in Japan the sales of console games including the games played on PS3, Xbox360 and Wii all showed growth in 2008, but resulting in an overall sales decline is mainly due to the reduction of PS2 sales that has declined 46%. And the sales of the games played on DS also declined. The analyst of Enterbrain predicted that some upcoming great DS games and console games in 2009, likeDragon Quest 9, Monster Hunter3 and Final Fantasy 13, would make the games sales rise up again.

The sales of console games increased 22%, and video games increased 2% in the US. Compared to the other two countries, Britain got the best result in 2008: in console games, its sales increased 38% and video games increased 6%. From the latest statistics, in Britain, the sales has surpassed that in Japan. From this point, Britain becomes the second biggest games market. But from the amount of sales, Britain is behind Japan,however, the gap has been greatly narrowed.

The top list of the most popular games in 2008:

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