App Annie and International Data Corporation (IDC) announced a new report that showed that spending on iOS App Store and Google Play games eclipsed that of dedicated handheld games in Q4. Titled the App Annie & IDC Portable Gaming Report, it also says that handheld game consoles were much more seasonal, with 60 percent of Q4 consumer spending on the PS Vita and 3DS happening in December, much higher than from the iOS App Store or Google Play.

“The App Annie and IDC partnership and resulting Portable Gaming Report provides a broad picture of the gaming industry in order to inform business and investment strategies across gaming devices, platforms and regions,” said Bertrand Schmitt, CEO, App Annie. “The marriage of App Annie’s leading app store market data with IDC’s worldwide video game and entertainment physical shipment data allows for industry insights not currently available to the various portable gaming stakeholders.”

“While the most popular games and their business models are quite distinct, Nintendo and Apple were surprisingly close in terms of aggregate consumer spend on game software in the fourth quarter of 2012,” said Lewis Ward, IDC’s gaming research manager. “Seasonality is more pronounced in the dedicated handheld space and we hope this report series will help clarify the evolution of portable gaming dynamics in 2013 and beyond.”

Source: Blog.AppAnnie.com