Video games have become one of the grossing entertainment industries in recent years. The advancement in technology has given rise to many gaming platforms. Consoles and mobiles are two of them.
Both platforms have their advantages and disadvantages. Consoles have larger screens, and high-quality graphics, and can perform multiple actions using game controllers. Whereas mobiles are easy to use, accessible, and can be carried around and played anywhere. Furthermore, both gaming platforms have plenty of amazing games in various genres.
Here, let us compare mobile games vs. console games features to get a better understanding of them.
The year 1972 marked the beginning of video game consoles when Magnavox released “Odyssey” — the first generation console that was invented by Ralph Baer and his team. A light gun game, ping-pong, and a chasing game were some of the early games on the console. Along with that Odyssey had nearly 28 games in their console to play.
The second generation console “Atari 2600” was released by Atari in 1977 where multicolor games can be played. The Atari 2600 had many games. Some very popular console games saw light of the day including Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Flight Simulator.
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) released their video game console in 1985 with advanced 8-bit graphics, sound effects, and color than the previous generation consoles. Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Metroid were some of the popular titles released by Nintendo.
Sega released their 16-bit console “Genesis” in 1988, becoming a rival to Nintendo. Both the console manufacturers were in a tough fight for the coming years and they have released awesome games like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2.
In the year 1994,Sony released the PlayStation which instantly became a hit among the video gamers and came to rule the console market in the coming years. Following this, PS2 was released which holds the record as one of the highest-selling consoles of all time.
Later in 2001, Microsoft stepped foot into video game console manufacturing with the release of Xbox emerging as a rival to Sony. To date, Microsoft and Sony have released many consoles in the Xbox series and PS series.
Though there are many consoles in the market, PlayStation has been the sole ruler of the console market for more than two decades.
Tetris, the first mobile game was released in Hagenuk MT-2000, a mobile phone made by Hagenuk Corporation. This is the start of the mobile game era.
Nokia in December 1997 launched the iconic SNAKE game. This game became highly successful and was downloaded by nearly 350 million people worldwide. Later, Nokia made the two-player game of the SNAKE in its Nokia 6110.
Following this, the very popular console game “Space Invaders” came to be available on mobiles in 2002.
Later in 2007, Apple’s first iPhone was released. It created a new era of mobile gaming with its touch screen and other advanced features. With the release of smartphones and app stores now we have thousands of mobile games to play. Angry Birds, Candy Crush, Fruit Ninja, Cut the Rope, and many more interesting games were released on mobile. Down the line, it kept getting better with high-quality 3D graphics and fantastic artwork.
Now many console games are also available on mobiles — all thanks to the improved computational and networking capabilities.
A study made by Newzoo revealed that the mobile gaming sector garnered more revenue than the console gaming sector in the year 2022, which is not surprising when compared to the hours people spend with their mobile phones playing games.
| Game Category | Total Revenue in 2022 |
| Mobile Phone | $91.4 billion |
| Console | $58.6 billion |
The above table shows the revenue share of mobile vs. console gaming in the year 2022.
The release of more interesting games and targeted marketing campaigns were the two big reasons for the surge in the market share of mobile games. In the future too, we can expect the revenue share of mobile games to increase more than console and PC games.
Consoles have very powerful graphic processors. Let us take PS5 as an example. PS5 is made of AMD Radeon RDNA (also called ‘Oberon’) GPU. This graphic processor is specifically made for PS5 for the smooth running of AAA titles. Here, the AAA games are made exclusively to fit PS5 platform specifications.
Consoles make partnerships with game development studios and they share the platform’s technical specifications with them. The game developers then develop games befitting the requirements of the console platforms.
Whereas mobile manufacturers do not make mobiles for the purpose of playing games. And people too do not buy mobile phones only for playing games alone. It is much like they have a smartphone where games are available and hence they play.
But we cannot deny the fact that in recent years the mobile gaming community has grown much more than console and PC combined.
Joysticks, paddles, and gamepads are used by console gamers to interact and control the video games. At the same time, when we look into mobile games they use touch controls, virtual buttons, gyroscopic and accelerometer controls.
Console controls offer physical feedback and they can be used to perform complicated gameplay actions. While mobile games have more simple, intuitive, and easily accessible controls.
Most mobile game development companies make games in genres such as casual, hyper-casual, puzzle, arcade, MOBA, battle royale, and RPG games while console game developers focus more on making AAA big-budget games in genres such as action-adventure, storytelling, RPG, Shooting, FPS, and fighting games.
Also, the recent activity of mobile gamers revealed that more players are showing interest in play to earn games. Gambling and easy money games like casino games, poker games, lottery games, etc., have been on the rise in recent years. It is because the gambling companies and game developers are pouring thousands of dollars into advertising these games.
Mobile devices are built for multiple purposes such as social media, taking photos, and videos, watching videos, and movies, calling, etc. So, the hardware and infrastructure in mobile devices differ greatly from dedicated gaming platforms.
Furthermore, there are plenty of mobile brands such as Apple, Samsung, Redmi, etc., Each has different device-specific features and configurations. So, when developing a game for a mobile device, the game developer needs to make sure that it works on every mobile platform. Also, they playtest the game using multiple mobile devices to make sure there are no technical glitches, errors, or bugs while the player plays the video game.
As mentioned earlier, console games are made exclusively for that particular console (say PS5 or Xbox, etc.,). So testing is a bit easier in consoles when compared to mobile devices.
The best part of owning a console is that you have access to the console exclusive games (These games are only available on that particular platform alone). For example, Demon’s Soul, Final Fantasy 7, and Horizon Forbidden West are some of the PS5 exclusive games. Likewise, Xbox has its own exclusive games.
Sony’s PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s Xbox series, and Nintendo are some of the best gaming consoles in the video game market today.
We can see many popular mobile games are available on both Android and iOS devices. Despite that, the Apple Store and Play Store have some exclusive games, listed at the top of their app stores.
Smartphones are super flexible and can be carried anywhere. While commuting or waiting for an appointment or on coffee breaks, etc., you can look around and see people casually pulling out their phones and playing their favorite games.
This is one of the major reasons for the widespread popularity of casual games like Candy Crush, Among Us, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and other such games.
Major mobile platforms used by people are Android and iOS and these platforms have their dedicated app stores where thousands of games are available. People can easily download and play the games. There are many games that, once downloaded, are available to play offline.
On the contrary, consoles are fixed devices and you would need accessories like TVs, controllers, etc., to play the game.
Despite that, there are handheld consoles like Steam Deck, and Nintendo Switch which can be transported and played anywhere. But one of the major disadvantages of these consoles is battery capacity and the graphics quality — even with advanced computing, they could not match the video and graphic quality of the consoles.
To conclude, both mobile and console have plenty of fantastic features to keep their audience excited. Even though both have a few disadvantages when compared to each other, they are easily outweighed by their advantages. Adding to that, many games are being developed both for both mobile and console devices. Many game development companies are providing cross-platform and game porting services to enable seamless gaming experiences for their players across multiple gaming platforms.
Reach out to Juego Studios. We are a leading video game development company with many years of experience in developing games for various platforms including Android, iOS, PC, and consoles. Our team consists of a talented bunch of game developers, artists, animators, and testers who have worked on 500+ successful projects in multiple game genres including strategy games, puzzle games, board games, fighting games, and shooting games.
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