People now spend more on smartphone gaming then dedicated portable consoles!

Image Credit: Mashable.

   The guys over at AllThingsD have been able to get their hands on a report before it was published which indicates that for the first quarter of this year mobile gaming had more money spent on it than the dedicated handheld console, which consists of devices like the Nintendo DS and PS Vita,  market did.

    To be fair this comparison in Q1 is a little deceiving. The sales on portable handhelds like the PS Vita are very cyclical and they tend to focus very heavily on the Christmas period, whereas mobile gaming has a consistent stream of high quality games coming to the market throughout the year so it's not just a one off, as you can see in the bar charts below.

   The thing is that with mobile games getting ever better and your mobile phone and tablet becoming ever more powerful, people find it hard to justify the extra outlay on devices which offer comparable experiences. Lets face it, if we could play Angry Birds on our phone and only have it ad-supported, instead of dropping $30 on it for a console game, we think we'd probably opt for the free version. This price gap definitely has some sort of impact because people are more inclined to spend little amounts more often on mobile games then make more substantial purchases on dedicated games.

   The interesting thing to see now will be what direction this market goes in the future. Will everything be on your phone or do mobile games  consoles still have a place? Let us know your thoughts in the comment below!
Via AllThingsD.

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Google I/O: A few things we haven't covered yet!

Google Maps:

   Google have updated their Mapping platform and the whole idea is to make the platform much more tailored and engaging for you, the customer. You can see the whole list of changes beautifully summarised by the BBC here. There's also three new api's which will help with phone positioning without draining battery and there will be specific tools to establish how people are moving be it in the car, on a bike or on foot!

Google Hangouts:

   This is effectively taking over from Google Talk! The service has Google+ compatibility as well as being built into your Gmail already! The video below shows you how everything will look and work!

Gaming:

   Google have announced a new set of gaming options including Google Play leader boards and new multiplayer features which let you play against friends on games! It's a sweet edition, it's just a
shame the demo of RipTide didn't work yesterday at the event! This feature will also be landing on iOS and the web so it's not an Android exclusive!

Other bits and bobs:

• Google have launched a new service for developers which lets you commission professional translations for you app right from the developer console!
• There will soon be synchronised notifications across your devices! So if you dismiss an email on your phone it will dismiss it on your tablet too!
• Google Play Music will be new an improved and will cost $9.99 per month for 'all access' and you can create your own radio stations based on artists or you can upload 20,000 of your own songs or you can look through Google's catalogue!

Don't worry guys, we know we haven't touched on things such as Chrome and the Android stats just yet, but don't worry we promise that they'll arrive through today, tomorrow and possibly the weekend, as and when we hear more details from Google's sessions!

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Rovio teases Bad Piggies! Available Sept. 27!

   Rovio has had it's Pig-centric successor to Angry Birds in the cooker for quite a while now and it seems the game is nearly ready for release! The trailer above will give you a pretty good idea of the sort of game play we can expect to see, but Rovio has promised that Angry Birds and Bad Piggies gameplay will be 'complete opposites".

   It's a lot more of a puzzle-based game this time and in the same way Amazing Alex is. You will have to build things to complete the objectives. But, it does seem that Bad Piggies takes it to the next level! Again this will have all the animated 2D charm of the previous games, but with the added fun of creating your own unique contraptions to guide the pigs through levels, collecting as many stars and eggs as possible!

   If you need a new time killing game then put Thursday, September 27 in your diary! The app will be available on Android and iOS on that date and Windows Phone and PC are currently being worked on, but we don't have a release date for those at the moment!

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