Monday, January 25, 2010

Namco Sells 23 Million App Store Games Since 2008

Is anybody paying attention to this? This is important:

Namco Networks said it is averaging 36,450 downloads per day since the App Store's opening in June 2008. A rep for Namco Networks told us that the total download amount includes both free and paid downloads, although the company did not immediately have a ratio at hand.


Namco has partially relied on popular franchises born in the arcade and home consoles in order to gain a foothold in digital markets, with App Store renditions of Pac-Man, Mr. Driller, Galaga and Ace Combat. The company has also released new properties such as Garters & Ghouls and Isaac Newton’s Gravity on the App Store.

People love video games. They want classic arcade video games. They want Super Mario Bros. They want Galaga. They want Pac-Man. The greater public is not interested in Playstation Movies; that is the realm of the stagnant "hardcore" gamer clique. That way points to the past. The future of games lies with Nintendo, Apple, Facebook, and mobile devices.

If I were to start a videogame magazine in 2010, I would focus exclusively on those formats. I'd ignore PS360 entirely; not out of malice or some high school social snobbery, but because those retail formats are well represented by existing games journalism. The arcade game player is being ignored, and they're the majority. They're the future.

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