Handheld Games : Android and iOS set to overtake Nintendo’s DS platform in full-year 2011.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Flurry Analytics  said that there has been a notable shift in US portable games software revenue, with Android and iOS set to overtake Nintendo’s DS platform in full-year 2011.

Last year, the Nintendo platform accounted for 57 percent of revenue, with Sony’s PSP having a 9 percent share, and Android and iOS having 34 percent jointly. Based on its full-year 2011 estimates, Flurry believes that the DS will have 36 percent of the market by revenue, with PSP falling to 6 percent, and Android/iOS growing to 58 percent.

The company estimates the US mobile games market to be worth US$3.3 billion in 2011, compared with US$2.5 billion in 2010, which was a slight decrease from US$2.7 billion in 2009.

In a blog post, Flurry said that “no industry has been more impacted by digital distribution than video games,” and that “leading the disruption are iOS and Android devices, whose free and inexpensive games, distributed across a massive installed base of powerful and networked tablet and mobile phone form factors, have already disrupted billions of dollars of game revenue.”

It was also noted that the change in business model is likely to be extended into the living room, with both Apple and Google moving into the TV category. “Ostensibly, this new class of hardware will create a new platform upon which the digital distribution model of apps will be overlaid,” the analytics firm said – challenging Nintendo, as well as Microsoft and Sony, on its home-turf.

Sony to unveil PSP handheld in Jan 27 and Game playing smartphone at MWC 2011

WorldWideTech & Science. Francisco De Jesús.

Sony plans to unveil an updated PlayStation Portable handheld game device on Jan. 27, followed by a game-playing smartphone in February, according to two people with knowledge of the plans.

Sony, the world’s second-largest maker of portable game players, will also outline a strategy to use its networked entertainment services to share games, movies and music among handheld products, TVs and other devices, said one person, who declined to be identified because the plan isn’t public.

With the updated portable player and the Sony Ericsson touch-screen smartphone to be shown at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Tokyo-based company aims to gain market share in markets dominated by Nintendo Co. and Apple Inc., according to one of the people, whose company makes mobile-phone software and was briefed on the plans.