Nielsen just published a report which concluded what was pretty obvious - Games rule the application marketplace in US. According to the study, 93% of users who have downloaded an app in 30 day time period are willing to pay for games while only 76% are willing to pay for a news application.
Another interesting stat, which says a lot, is that iOS, Android and Windows phone 7 users are more likely to download games than Blackberry and other feature phone OS (like Symbian, WebOS..?) users who tend to play pre loaded games. Average iOS gamers spend staggering 14.7 hours a month on gaming while Android and Windows Phone 7 users spend 9.3 hours and 4.7 hours per month respectively on gaming. The industry average is noted to be 7.8 hours a month, so WP7 falls quite short.
Microsoft is pushing Xbox live on Windows Phone 7 aggressively. A lot of work still needs to be done to get on par with both Android and iOS. Another reason why the number is low is probably due to the obnoxious pricing of XBL titles. Well, in case you forgot,
we did cover some features , like XBL voice chat, which could help accelerate the push. Indie devs have an important role to play as well and I think they are doing a pretty good job right now. More users would attract more developers and lead to innovation and quality improvement in marketplace. Hoping Mango retail release would change that. Do let us know your thoughts on this.
By Rahul Mathur
