[JB9861]

Originally Posted by joker454

That's a two part answer. Will Windows Phone overtake Android or iOS maket share? Not anytime soon. However will it be a profitable platform? That's where I think it will overtake Android in that companies will be able to make more money on Windows Phone compared to Android phone.

Why will OEMs make more money with Windows Phone 8?

[joker454]

Originally Posted by JB9861

Why will OEMs make more money with Windows Phone 8?

I was talking about developers, not oem's.

[JB9861]

Originally Posted by joker454

I was talking about developers, not oem's.

Oh. Sorry I didn't get the proper context. What's MS bringing to the table as far as profitability for devs? I was under the impression IOS was making the big bucks and everyone else was fighting over very small margins.

[joker454]

Originally Posted by JB9861

What's MS bringing to the table as far as profitability for devs? I was under the impression IOS was making the big bucks and everyone else was fighting over very small margins.

A few reasons that come to mind:

- Microsoft takes a smaller cut, 20% (with sales >$25k) compared to 30% on iOS. You can negotiate if you have the clout but you are still negotiating from a better % baseline on the Windows app store anyways.

- More exposure on the Windows app store since it's not so saturated. On iOS it's very difficult now to not get lost.

- One codebase lets you ship an app that works on desktop, laptop, tablet, phone and (possibly?) their future console. There is no one else out there that can offer this now or anytime soon so you aren't dependent on a customer having a particular phone to be able to upsell to them, any Windows 8 device is a potential customer.

- Windows is still huge, so long term your Win8 apps will reach an utterly massive audience unless that 91% of Windows XP/Vista/7 desktop users all decide to defect to Linux.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by joker454

...so you aren't dependent on a customer having a particular phone to be able to upsell to them, any Windows 8 device is a potential customer.

Except you're dependent on them having a Windows phone, which is basically a Nokia at this point.

- Windows is still huge, so long term your Win8 apps will reach an utterly massive audience unless that 91% of Windows XP/Vista/7 desktop users all decide to defect to Linux.

Are Win 8 apps coming to older Windows? If they are Windows 8 exclusive, the market will be whoever upgrades, and Windows 7 is very good. Even then, the cross-device market will be limited to whoever gets a win 8 PC and a Windows phone/tablet, which is going to be a far, far, far smaller market than iOS or Android. IMO it'd be better as a developer to use a cross platform development environment and target iOS+Android if you're writing an app. There'll be opportunities for a noteworthy app to make a strong appearance on Win 8, just as there is any platform at launch (PSVita via PSMobile, Wiiware, etc.) where you have a captive audience looking for something to buy, but if you miss the small launch window, you are reliant on the market growing for it to pay back your development efforts. On the other overcrowded platforms, you are instead dependent on creating a good app and marketing. That aren't any fields of gold anywhere AFAICS.

[rekator]

Samsung got a Winphone 8 for end of year, and others follow… They're need to be less dependent from Androïd.

But yes MS need to help (financial and tech) devs to have a strong Apps catalogue. And also target customers with high potential buy apps, market got by Apple actually, with their ecosystem, phones and apps.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by rekator

And also target customers with high potential buy apps, market got by Apple actually, with their ecosystem, phones and apps.

A big problem with that is these people will have bought lots of apps on their current device and migrating platform means leaving all that behind. Depending on what the apps are and what use they get, that may be thje biggest reason not to switch. The fact apps are so cheap means switching platform isn't anything like as drastic as switching your main computer platform, but it's going to count for something.

This is going OT though, unless MS announce a standardised control attachment for their Win 8 phones or something. Game standardisation across XB3 and Windows phones could greatly encourage the adoption of mobiles as gaming devices as they'll get 'proper' games then. PSMobile should also promote the same with Vita as a target; even moreso if Sony would enable PSMobile on PS3.

[joker454]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Except you're dependent on them having a Windows phone, which is basically a Nokia at this point.

No you're not, which is the main point. Your same app that works on Windows Phone 8 can also be easily made to work on other Windows 8 platforms because they are all the same, so you are no longer betting the farm on one device. For example, if you make something for iOS and it doesn't sell for whatever reason, if you want to leverage that work again you have to spend more time and money to port it to other platforms or devices. On the other hand if you make something for Windows Phone 8 and it doesn't sell, then shifting it over to pc, laptop, tablet and (possibly) the next console is simple. The benefit of this is seemingly missed by the mainstream media but give them a year or so and it'll become abundantly clear.

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Are Win 8 apps coming to older Windows? If they are Windows 8 exclusive, the market will be whoever upgrades, and Windows 7 is very good. Even then, the cross-device market will be limited to whoever gets a win 8 PC and a Windows phone/tablet, which is going to be a far, far, far smaller market than iOS or Android. IMO it'd be better as a developer to use a cross platform development environment and target iOS+Android if you're writing an app. There'll be opportunities for a noteworthy app to make a strong appearance on Win 8, just as there is any platform at launch (PSVita via PSMobile, Wiiware, etc.) where you have a captive audience looking for something to buy, but if you miss the small launch window, you are reliant on the market growing for it to pay back your development efforts. On the other overcrowded platforms, you are instead dependent on creating a good app and marketing. That aren't any fields of gold anywhere AFAICS.

Inevitably people will shift to Windows 8, unless like I had said that 91% marketshare of XP/Vista/7 users suddenly all decide to shift to Linux or everyone completely stops buying new pcs, laptops and tablets forever. Again mainstream media likes to paint the pc as totally dead but that's because they are either dumb or just trolling for clicks. The masses of desktop users are not going to disappear overnight, and between them, phone customers, tablet customers and hopefully console customers anyone's Windows 8 based app will have no shortage of eyeballs to buy it.

I'm already leverage this as best I can. I'll have three Windows 8 based apps on the app store before Windows 8 ships to the masses (with more to come), and the instant I get a Windows 8 phone I'll make them all work on it. I can do that because the code base is all similar so it's easy for a one man team to do that. They will also work on Windows RT tablets once they are out, I'll buy such a tablet to test them out as well. Naturally they will work on x86 Win8 tablets as well, that's another set of customers, so in mere months my apps will be purchasable by desktop users, laptop/ultrabook users, phone users, rt tablet users and x86 tablet users. Next year with the Xbox 720 comes out, if it does run Win8 apps as I suspect it will then guess what? I'll get all my apps running on Xbox 720 Indie, letting me again leverage all my work with the greatest of ease to yet another set of eyeballs. No one else offers me the ability to do this.

[zed]

unless like I had said that 91% marketshare of XP/Vista/7 users suddenly all decide to shift to Linux

linux?, Someones caught in the old days. the paradigm is rapidly changing. I read the other day apple is now worth more than MS,google & intel combined!

In the USA, mac OS is the second largest OS at 16.03% marketshare (yes higher than XP & vista but behind win7 )
IOS sits at 5.48%
And at the rates they're growing at we could be seeing windows desktop/mobile combined drop under 50% within the next couple years. Contrast this to 5 years ago at ~90%

OK if you take a worldwide approach eg china & brazil etc then the apple OS's arent doing nearly as well, but how much money does one make in these high volume but poorer countries

[joker454]

Originally Posted by zed

linux?, Someones caught in the old days. the paradigm is rapidly changing. I read the other day apple is now worth more than MS,google & intel combined!

In the USA, mac OS is the second largest OS at 16.03% marketshare (yes higher than XP & vista but behind win7 )
IOS sits at 5.48%
And at the rates they're growing at we could be seeing windows desktop/mobile combined drop under 50% within the next couple years. Contrast this to 5 years ago at ~90%

OK if you take a worldwide approach eg china & brazil etc then the apple OS's arent doing nearly as well, but how much money does one make in these high volume but poorer countries

Well I say Linux because it seems like every second post on other websites talks about how Linux is taking over, then I look at the google analytics on my 50k+ hits per day websites and see Linux at just 1% and scratch my head Traffic to my websites worldwide tracks like this right now:

Windows : 78.09%
Mac OS: 6.78%
iOS: 6.20%
Android: 4.46%

Worldwide matters far more in the grand scheme of things because all that really matters is paying customers. For example in my other business venture I get 28% of my revenues from USA, the rest from around the world. There are certainly many poor countries out there, but I've been told this is the list of countries where one can make good conversion/revenue:

Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Honk Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA

That is data from a very large player in my other business venture so not directly software related, however their data is about which countries you are most likely to convert a non paying customer to a paying customer so it's fairly important.

Point being that Windows is still important, it's just that they've been without a proper app store or cohesive platform strategy so it never came together. That's all resolved now quick excellently I may add from a developers point of view. My main wildcard now is I wonder if they will try to make the Xbox 360 be capable of running Windows 8 apps. It has the specs to do it and that's millions more eyeballs out there, I just don't know if it's worth it to them to support yet another technology set and instead just stick with x86 and Arm.

I'm definitely not gonna rag on Apple. It's very hard to get noticed on their app store but if you do you can make good coin. Most of the developers I know that tried to get on their have failed to gain any traction, although I have one buddy that has managed to get noticed and he's making some decent money. I'm going to partner with him at some point and have him port all my apps to iOS and fly them under their banner. Android is a different story though. You can read many articles about how people can't make money on Android but I prefer to get more direct examples so I've asked around and truth be told I know of no one that has been able to make money with Android. If anyone out there knows of anyone that has made money on Android then I've love to hear about their experiences.

[wco81]

Which website?

Which apps?

I guess Rovio is making money with their Android versions of Angry Birds, from all the ad impressions. Or they were.

[scooby_dooby]

As a developer myself, Windows 8 looks extremely attractive.

It's true that iOS is where the majority of the cash is flowing, but the competition is also scathing. I think I read somehting like 40,000 iOS games were released in 2011, double the year previous, and double the year before that. Presumably we're looking at 60-80,000 new games in 2012, or around 216/day!

Often it's easier to stand out in a small pond. Smaller risk, smaller reward. For example, several developers I know and myself have found surprising success on Blackberry Playbook. Not get rich money, but pay your rent money maybe...

So, what you're really looking for is a small pond, with highly active and growing userbase. I'd say Windows 8 fits that to a tee. Being there on Day 1, as a quality game in a mass market genre, would be money in the bank. As opposed to iOS, which is more like money on the craps table

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by joker454

No you're not, which is the main point.

Ah, misunderstanding as I thought by device you meant phone device. Yes, you're right, that you aren't dependent on them having a particular phone and could sell Win 8 apps to iPhone owners to run on their PC. That is a significant advantage.

The masses of desktop users are not going to disappear overnight, and between them, phone customers, tablet customers and hopefully console customers anyone's Windows 8 based app will have no shortage of eyeballs to buy it.

The thread is about handheld gaming. Win 8 as a viable handheld platform requires handhelds to run your Win 8 app, and the context of people questioning the economy of developing Win 8 apps (games) is within handhelds where iOS rules the roost. I don't see a situation in the next five years or whenever where Win 8 is the handheld platform that ends custom handheld consoles from Nintendo and Sony.

[joker454]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

The thread is about handheld gaming. Win 8 as a viable handheld platform requires handhelds to run your Win 8 app, and the context of people questioning the economy of developing Win 8 apps (games) is within handhelds where iOS rules the roost. I don't see a situation in the next five years or whenever where Win 8 is the handheld platform that ends custom handheld consoles from Nintendo and Sony.

Then remove desktops from the mix...but the rest still apply as phones, tablets and laptops are all portable, and remember than many of the new Win8 laptops are hybrids where the screen breaks away and you can use that as a tablet to game on the go. Unless of course y'all feel that the only possible acceptable portable gaming form factor is a Nintendo DS, to which I'd vehemently disagree. Mind you it still doesn't change the financially advantageous point that a developer could also take their handheld gaming app and also get it running on the desktop as well for extra financial security, which makes old traditional "handheld gaming platforms" as you define them much less appealing.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by joker454

Then remove desktops from the mix...but the rest still apply as phones, tablets and laptops are all portable, and remember than many of the new Win8 laptops are hybrids where the screen breaks away and you can use that as a tablet to game on the go. Unless of course y'all feel that the only possible acceptable portable gaming form factor is a Nintendo DS, to which I'd vehemently disagree.

The inclusion of a 7" tablet at the start of this thread shows that DS size as the only standard was never a position anyone was arguing. The question is what is going to stop people buying dedicated handheld consoles? Smartphones is an obvious one as that is carried around in the same form factor. Small tablets could also be someone's platform of choice. How many people who bought or would buy a DS, Gameboy, PSP, Vita or future handheld would choose to play on a laptop or notebook instead? Personally I doubt it's many, but there may be a compelling argument or stat to the contrary.

Mind you it still doesn't change the financially advantageous point that a developer could also take their handheld gaming app and also get it running on the desktop as well for extra financial security, which makes old traditional "handheld gaming platforms" as you define them much less appealing.

Odd phrasing. What's with the speech marks when I never actually said those words? And what other definition even is there for handheld gaming that you'd rather use? Are people going to be sat on the bus/train/plane handheld gaming on their 12" laptops in future, rendering dedicated console redundant?

I don't disagree at all that Win 8 is a great looking platform with loads of potential, so I'm not quite sure what you're arguing. Confusion about your position after saying:

Originally Posted by Joker454

Will Windows Phone overtake Android or iOS maket share? Not anytime soon. However will it be a profitable platform? That's where I think it will overtake Android in that companies will be able to make more money on Windows Phone compared to Android phone.

...seems to explain the current discussion about Win 8's viability as a developer platform in the question about what's going to cause people to stop buying discrete handheld gaming devices. But even then, Win 8 is only good now because it's new. Once it becomes saturated like iOS and Android, it'll be no easier to make money there than any other platform. That's one of the few advantages to developing for a dedicated console with controlled content - far less competition and far more chance to get seen. But because controlled hardware is disappearing and everything's turning open-platform one way or another, success will eventually boil down to marketing no matter what you make.

[joker454]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I don't disagree at all that Win 8 is a great looking platform with loads of potential, so I'm not quite sure what you're arguing.

The quick answer...the thread title is "is it the end of handheld consoles?" I think it is and I used the Win8 universe as an example of why it's dead both for developers who can more cheaper target multiple devices by sticking with Win8 based code, and for users who will have multiple portable play options with Win8 devices, and not have to spend more money on dedicated hardware when what they already have fits the bill. That's it really. The idea of a dedicated gaming device will seem quaint one day in the not so distance future, and Win8 is part of the reason why. The reason I use Win8 as my example is that I don't think Android will do it because as far as I hear from developers it's not an appealing platform for various reasons...but if someone has evidence to the contrary on that I'd be interested in hearing it.

[zed]

Often it's easier to stand out in a small pond. Smaller risk, smaller reward.

true, but windows phone has over 100k applications, so theres a fair bit competition

heres the approx numbers of applications

Apple 650k (including 250k ipad)
Android 500k
WP 100k

so ~7:1 but the thing is IOS devices outnumber WP devices by about 30:1 so statistically youre about 4x better off developing for IOS.
that and the fact are the average IOS owner prolly outlays more cash than android or WP owners

[scooby_dooby]

Originally Posted by zed

true, but windows phone has over 100k applications, so theres a fair bit competition

heres the approx numbers of applications

Apple 650k (including 250k ipad)
Android 500k
WP 100k

so ~7:1 but the thing is IOS devices outnumber WP devices by about 30:1 so statistically youre about 4x better off developing for IOS.
that and the fact are the average IOS owner prolly outlays more cash than android or WP owners

Such broad numbers are really useless. YOu would want to look at how many games are released currently, per day, in your specific target category, to get an sense of competition.

There's tons and tons of dormant games on all the markets, these "total apps" figures are grossly misleading. According to a study i read recently, up to 60% of iOS apps have never even been downloaded!

Plus, where are you getting the assumption that the Windows Phone 7 apps will work on Windows 8? First I've heard of this....