Mobile Games Growing

Research firm NPD Group recently announced the U.S. video game retail sales numbers of hardware, software and accessories for the first half of 2005. NPD attributes a big part of the industry's 11 percent increase in overall unit sales was due "to the new portable platforms introduced into the U.S. market in late 2004 and early 2005."

Anita Frazier, entertainment industry analyst at NPD said, "The robust performance of the portable market certainly contributed to the considerable sales growth of the industry," and portable game hardware, software and accessories saw dollar sales jumps of 181 percent, 74 percent and 81 percent respectively.

The NPD study didn't track gaming on cell phones and other non-gaming mobile devices so it is harder to get a better picture of the overall mobile gaming market. However with worldwide sales of the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP at more than 11 million and counting, the prospects for the portable gaming market looks extremely healthy, especially when you factor in the relatively small amount of content currently available for the two systems....

via NPD