A Look Ahead at GDC: It’s Mobile vs. Consoles in Fight for Game Developers’ Attention

If San Francisco appears to be even geekier than usual this week, there’s a reason: The annual Game Developers Conference is taking over the Moscone Center today through Friday.
AllThingsD will be there, and we’re keeping an eye on two questions in particular: How is the business of mobile games changing, and how are the makers of consoles and other physical media responding to mobile’s ascendance?

[majiebeast]

I really hope this whole mobile games boom is temporary. Cause if it continues it could lead to another industry crash like in the 80s.

[iGAM3R-VIII]

Mobile games will NEVER be near as to console games. you will never get the same power as a console, the same graphics, the same fps, and the same quality, and screen size. Until I see a 47" phone with a seperate controller and 8GB of ram and the same graphics card as the PS4/XBox 720, then I will consider it, but for now the mobile gaming industry will never out due the console game industry and the exclusives for the consoles

[caseh]

I wouldn't underestimate mobile games just yet, the specs on phones like the Xperia Z and the S4 show they are more than capable of some impressive stuff.

Nothing to rival what a high-end PC or console is capable of but this is a device that is less than 1/2 a cm in depth, has a 5inch screen but its packing 2-4gb RAM and a quad-core processor.

Mobile gaming has a market, these games are likely to hit a much wider audience simply due to the fact everyone has a mobile these days.

Whether or not we get some real kick-ass games is another matter but there are several that I play at the moment that have had a serious amount of time invested into them, and i've not paid a penny to play them.

[CaulkSlap]

That's not really the concern. The problem is the mobiles eating away so much of the market that developers can no longer make a profit on the big budget games we love. Mobiles are getting quite capable of satisfying a basic casual gamer. Like it or not consoles rely on those people to support them.

[guitarded77]

It's just easy and cheap to develop for those other platforms, so you have a lot of individuals and small teams developing for tablets, PC and phone. If they showed the monetary investment for each platform, the numbers would probably reflect a different story. Remember, you can make stats say whatever you want them to say by asking a different question.

[ATiElite]

is it just me or did anyone else notice the HUGE commitment of developers to the PC/Mac platforms?

It's amazing how "Some" people who know ZERO about PC Gaming wanna bash it but then all these charts show something completely different.

I mean if PC Gaming was such a waste then why on Earth would SO MANY devs be focused on it?

PC Gaming is where it's at!

[iGAM3R-VIII]

?

[kingmushroom]

Primal Carnage Genesis !

[imXify]

This chart means nothing. Only the content counts.

[Realplaya]

Hmnnnnnn mobile gaming where to start. The reason why so many mobile games sale is because so many suck. You buy a game for a day and wham it's boring and you say why did I waste my money. The controls on a phone not even commenting. In the end there's no competition.

[kevnb]

pc wins, it does both worlds. The console model is getting outdated now, most devs cant make money on it. Also there is a huge disconnect between retail, consumers, investors, and publishers. Retailers keep buying a bunch of games that end up in bargain bins trying to attract more consumers for other products. Investors go by what retail does, and by metacritic reviews. Publishers are a slave to what investors and retailers want. And consumers are getting rehashes and sequels 90% of the time thanks to this broken model.