Valve begins to take mobile gaming more seriously

Mobile gaming has been picking up steam steadily for the past few years, and now large game companies are finally beginning to pay more attention to the burgeoning sector. Large development studios are beginning to see the promise that is held within the mobile gaming market and some are beginning to make a serious effort to enter into it. Valve is hard at work on a new console that called the Steam Box, but that does not mean that the company is ignoring the mobile space, as it does actually have some major plans for mobile gaming.

Littlefoot will be new mobile gaming device from Valve

Valve is currently developing a mobile gaming device that has been codenamed “Littlefoot.”The Steam Box is taking up a significant amount of Valve’s resources, but the company has plans to launch Littlefoot as soon as possible in an effort to take advantage of the massive hype surrounding mobile gaming. There is a chance that the two consoles will come out at the same time, as speculation suggests that Valve has been developing the products side-by-side. Before Steam Box had an official name, it was known as “Bigfoot.”

Littlefoot and Steam Box likely to have some sort of connection

Littlefoot may be a tablet device or something similar to a smart phone, but specific details are not yet available. It will be used for mobile gaming, however, and have some form of connectivity with the Steam Box. Littlefoot may actually be a sort of controller for the Steam Box that allows gamers to play games without actually having to physically connect to the console itself. It may also be used as a standalone product, similar to the way the Wii U and its Gamepad work.

Hype continues to grow for the Steam Box

Mobile gaming has managed to catch the attention of Valve, which is one of the most celebrated companies in the game industry currently. Among consumers, Valve rarely makes mistakes, thus the hype surrounding the Steam Box and its Littlefoot counterpart is only expected to increase in the months leading up to the release of both products.

Apple devices are maintaining their integral role in the sales from the company’s digital goods store.

A new report has just been released by Horace Dediu, an analyst at Asymco, which has illustrated the importance of the role that Apple devices continue to play in the profitability of the iTunes mcommerce digital products store.

The report indicated that iPhone, iPod, and iPad users are still heavy buyers of digital products.

In fact, the statistics that were outlined in the report showed that iOS apps are currently driving one third of the revenue that is being enjoyed by iTunes, and this isn’t showing any indication of changing, for the moment. The research that the analyst performed also indicated a number of other fascinating mcommerce trends.

The iTunes mcommerce experience has continued to thrive as iOS device shoppers head back for more

Among the other findings of the report include the following:

• The gross revenues that have been achieved by the iTunes marketplace have reached an estimated $12 billion per year.
• Over a period of the last five years, owners of both media and apps have generated a total of approximately $24 billion.
• For the aforementioned $24 billion in sales, Apple spent around $10 billion in order to generate them.
• When taken into consideration as a retail business, it costs approximately $3.5 billion per year to operate the iTunes store. This amount includes the costs associated with merchandising, payment processing, as well as any “shipping & handling” expenses.
• Over the last four years, the total revenues at iTunes have experienced a steady rise, at an estimated compounded 32 to 38 percent.
• Although media other than apps still represents around two thirds of iTunes in terms of the annual sales value, the growth rate that this area is experiencing is at 28 percent, while the growth rate for apps is currently at 50 percent.

This annual mcommerce data provides a clearer understanding of the current state of iTunes and helps to suggest some of the directions that it may choose to take as 2013 continues to progress forward.