iPhone hurting mobile games says EA
Everytime an iPhone is activated, a smartphone somewhere dies
Really, we should slap ourselves for not thinking of this first. EA's Travis Boatman, vice president of the company's worldwide studios, has let fly a burst of pure logic during a panel session at CES, regarding the iPhone's impact on the mobile gaming industry, according to the PC World website.
His argument is based on displacement theory - in this case, that the iPhone's success has sucked sales out of the smartphone market. This is important because the iPhone is not yet home to a distribution platform for natively installed games, which means there are iPhone customers who would have been contributing to the growth of mobile games over the past six months by buying games had they instead opted for a Nokia or Sony Ericsson smartphone.
Maybe, maybe not. Critics would argue one of the defining features of the iPhone explosion has been its ability to engage people who otherwise weren't interested in high-end phones.
Either way though, the negative impact will presumably be short lived as the iPhone/iPod Touch software development kit will be made available in the next six weeks or so, which will - no doubt - precede an explosion of iPhone games. In the meantime however, if you are a keen proponent of mobile games but still rushed out to buy an iPhone on launch day, consider yourself shamed.