Capcom: ‘Gamers have abandoned handheld consoles’

Smartphones are usurping traditional games hardware, says Capcom.

The firm told MCV that more and more gamers are leaving PCs and handheld consoles for smartphones, and as a result Capcom Interactive has invested in a number of upcoming titles due for release on iPhone this year.

The casual gamer that used to play on the PC
and the hardcore gamer that used to play on a dedicated gaming portable now plays on their smartphone,” said Capcom Interactive’s president and COO Midori Yuasa.

The iPhone and larger smartphone markets are extremely important to Capcom as, like no device before, smartphones have the potential to become a universal game platform.

We have a lot of stuff on the horizon for both hardcore and casual gamers, so 2011 is shaping up to be huge on Capcom’s mobile front.”

The news comes following Capcom Interactive’s successful release of Smurfs’ Village on iPhone last November. It is free to download but charges for in-game items – as a result it out-grossed Angry Birds for a number of weeks. In-game items range from 2.99 to 59.99.

Yuasa added: A freemium business model can be extremely effective as illustrated by the success of Smurfs’ Village. However, the key is that the game has to be designed from day one as a freemium title.

If you try and shoehorn in an alternate revenue model into an existing design, you end up with a muddled experience that users either ignore or hammer with user reviews.”