Mobile Gaming Stocks: Will Cheap Games Hurt the Video Game Industry

If you're a child of the 1980s, then there's a good chance that Nintendo's inaugural video game console topped your Christmas or Hannukah wishlist when the first-generation system debuted. Back then, saving the pixelated princess was the easy part--the real challenge was just getting the game to load, involving shaking, blowing on and sometimes even smacking the temperamental cartridge around.

Hard to believe that today, game play is as easy as simply turning on your phone.  

Mobile gaming is on the rise, and revolutionizing the gaming industry--according to a recent study by Nielsen, the average iPhone user spends about 15 hours a month playing games on their smartphones.

Android users clocked in slightly above the overall average smartphone user, at 9.3 hours compared with 7.8 hours over a 30-day period. 64% of downloaders have loaded a new game onto their phone within the last 30 days, making games the most popular, and lucrative, category of smartphone applications.

Need more proof? Social and mobile gaming giant Zynga just filed a $1 billion IPO.

So what does all this mean for console gaming systems? If you ask Peter Vesterbacka, creator of the popular Angry Birds game for mobile phones, their days are numbered.

Quoted at SXSW declaring "consoles are dying," Vesterbacka sees the future of gaming in mobile and social mediums, while traditional companies charging $40 or $50 for a game are heading toward extinction.

But Nintendo president Satoru Iwata makes a compelling counterargument: “Consider this: the number of games available on the big app sites is in the tens of thousands. Game development is drowning. Yes, these games are far less expensive to create, but what revenue will they generate?”

Does the rise of the cheap mobile game signal weaker sales for video game companies that produce more expensive "premium" games for consoles? You be the judge--here's a list of companies with exposure to the trend.

source: http://www.businessinsider.com/mobile-gaming-stocks-will-cheap-games-hurt-the-video-game-industry-2011-7