£300 million expected to be spent on mobile gaming this year

IHS Screen Digest has predicted that £300 million will be spent on mobile gaming in 2013, triple the spend from three years ago.

The gap between mobile gaming and the traditional console is closing, though the games console is still ahead with Screen Digest predicting that £743 million will be spent on console games this year.

BBC’s Newsbeat visited Mobile World Congress 2013 to report on the explosion of mobile gaming, noting that companies were eager to demonstrate how mobile and tablet devices can connect to televisions, thus allowing users to play games via mobile whilst watching the graphics on a television.

The rise of mobile gaming has had a significant impact on the games console industry already, with Sony recently announcing that the new generation PS4 will have second screen features that will allow users to do things on mobile and tablet devices whilst continuing to use their PS4.

John Kopp from Game Insight told the BBC that though the mobile gaming world has exploded, he doesn’t think that the console is dead just yet.

“I can absolutely see [mobile] is the future,” Kopp said. “You’re looking at an entire generation of children who will grow up not knowing what it was like, not to have a touch screen.”