According to a new research from Flurry, a mobile analytics firm, Android and iOS games have taken a significant lead in the US portable game market in the year 2011.

The study reveals that iOS and Android, which had a mere 19 percent of the U.S. portable game market in 2009 when Nintendo and Sony together had 81%, has grown up to 58 percent in 2011, leaving Nintendo and Sony fighting for the rest of the share. The low price tag of mobile apps and the high adoption rate of new smartphones and tablets seem to have closed the deal for Apple and Android.

Nintendo and Sony together had generated $2.2 and $1.6 billion in game revenue in 2009 and 2010 respectively. However, by the end of this year, according to Flurry’s projection, their combined revenue would be a relatively small $1.4 billion, compared to an astounding $1.9 billion of iOS and Android put together.

Apple had entered the gaming market in 2008 with the launch of App Store. Soon, their rival, Google, entered the same with their Android Market. Today, there are millions of applications available in both stores that could be downloaded with a simple tap on the screen.

iOS and Android’s game tactics were simple. They attracted the casual gamers, who were willing to spend a few dollars to play on their phones, by providing free or low-cost games that could be played on multi-function devices. These games, which were usually supplemented by in-app purchases, delivered deadly blows to the already struggling dedicated, but relatively high-cost,  gaming devices.

According to Flurry, Nintendo DS and Sony PSP consumers paid around $200 for the gaming device and up to $40 for popular game cartridges; whereas mobile phones and tablets users acquired games either for free or for a price less than $10.

It is estimated that iOS has activated around 250 million devices and Android, approximately 190 million. As long as smartphones and tablets continue to grow in popularity, there will always be demand for apps and games too.

In short, it seems like the right time for businesses to venture into the lucrative mobile app market. If you would like to know more about app or game development, do drop us a mail. Our well experienced mobile and tablet app development team would get back to you in almost no time.

During the fall of 2008, Nokia also acquired Qt that was initially developed by Troltech as a proprietary software. Nokia released the source code of Qt under LGPL after the acquisition. Nobody understood what Nokia was upto, because Qt ES (formerly known as Qtopia Core) wasn’t so popular at that point of time. Later, when Meamo development community created a support for Qt framework, it got clear that MeeGo applications can be developed with Qt! With Qt, it is possible to develop applications for a range of devices like netbooks, notebooks, palmtops, smart phones, PDAs, tablet PCs and other handhelds. Qt applications are very rich in GUI and have proved to be solid. Opera browser and Skype are popular examples. This makes MeeGo a serious competitor for Android and iPhone. MeeGo can be downloaded and byte-copied to a thumb drive for testing. It has got a pleasing appearance, vibrant colors and a nice interface and nice big icons designed for touch environment.

If we look at the new Windows mobiles, without skype they are rated ‘poor’ for user experiences. Skype has already announced its support to iPhone, Android, Symbian and BlackBerry and has ditched Microsoft again. In such circumstances, Microsoft is not left with many choices, they should either go open source with Windows Mobile or come up with their own hardware to compete with iPhone and android powered HTCs.

There is no clear winner in the battle of these premium touch phones, but the competition is getting tougher by the day.