Android, iOS to Sony, Nintendo : Thanks for playing

Sony which lead the gadget industry in more ways than one has completely lost it. First it was the portable music player market which it owned and was later pwned by Apple. Now it’s happening again for Sony with its gaming consoles. Again it’s Apple. Android has joined the party too.

Just like it has been for many industries, it’s a natural progression for gaming too. Sony and Nintendo just didn’t realize it. By the time they woke up, Android and Apple, totally took over. Today games means Angry Birds, Cut the Rope or Talking Tom for that matter.

Thanks to touch screens, smartphones, and dual core, err… quad core processors, the mobile gaming industry has changed forever.

Today’s popular games are either free or $0.99. That’s a pricing model Sony and Nintendo weren’t used to. They were used to selling a $200 console and a $40 game to go with it. The result? A tectonic shift in the gaming trends.

Here’s the chart from Flurry :

From a neat 70% market share in 2009, Sony and Nintendo have fallen to 42% in the US market. Mobile gaming market was $2.7 bn in 2009, $2.5 bn in 2010 and $3.3 bn in 2011.

A split between iOS and Android would have been interesting to feed the ongoing iOS-Android rivalry .

I’m sure there will be people who kvetch about Flurry’s numbers. Irrespective of the accuracy of the data, a trend is clear : With smartphones around, not many will be buying them gaming consoles.