• Reuters, Thursday, April 2, 2009 11:30 AM

Apple, through its iPhone and iPod Touch, has emerged as a real force in gaming, Reuters says, "fulfilling the long-held promise of mobile gaming and positioning itself as a legitimate competitor to handheld consoles." With 30 million devices on the market (17 million iPhones and 13 million iPod Touches), Apple is creeping up on Nintendo's DS (100 million units) and Sony's PlayStation Portable (50 million units).

Scores of iPhone and iPod Touch-only games were on display at the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco last week. Some say the iPhone's unique features-like GPS, Wi-Fi connectivity, and touch-screen technology-give Apple a leg up over its more established rivals. "The iPhone is a threat to other portable game platforms," said Mitch Lasky, a Benchmark Capital partner and former CEO of Jamdat Mobile, which was sold to Electronic Arts in 2005 for $680 million. "It could be just massive."

Apple's App Store only went live last July, but since then, an entire network of developers has sprung up to create thousands of games, from simple puzzle and card games to action and racing titles. Roughly 23% of the App Store's 31,000 applications are games, according to mobile gaming researcher Mobclix, which also found that users play simple games for an average of 6-8 minutes, and more complex ones for an average of 22 minutes. Apple takes a 30% cut of developers' revenues.

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