A study performed by Abitron Mobile in December revealed that a wide range of consumers consider games of foremost importance when it comes to smartphones, and the iPhone represents the number one choice of gamers. 12,000 US citizens who utilize iPhone, BlackBerry and Android smartphones, and who had the Arbitron Mobile software installed, were questioned and the results showed that those who use an iPhone are 10% more prone to games in comparison with those who use Android. However, a great number of people from both categories did play games on their smartphones, more specifically 76% of those who utilize Android and 85.7% of those who utilize the iPhone.

More than just alluring a larger number of gamers, the iPhone also feature more devoted gamers. During a whole month, iPhone addicts played approximately 151.5 gaming sessions for about 743.1 minutes, which represents over 12 hours spent playing. On the other hand, Android users played only 94.6 gaming sessions for about 484 minutes. This means that iPhone has the ability to make its users play games as often as possible.

Due to the fact that the number of mobile users who opt for smartphones is on the rise, mobile gaming will become even more widespread among Americans. According to eMarketer, 49% of those who utilize a mobile will turn into mobile gamers this year, which means a total of 121.3 million persons. eMarketer foresees that by the end of 2016, there will be about 174 million mobile gamers, which represents 67% of those who use a mobile.

This analysis realized by Arbitron also underlined the fact that gaming has a great importance for smartphone consumers. Apparently, they spend about 594.1 minutes every month gaming, which is way more than the amount of time they allocate for utilizing another function of their phones, whether it’s texting, calling their friends or social networking.

Gaming occupies the top position when it came to the amount of time spent, even though it was not such an extensively utilized feature. For example, 99.3% of smartphone consumers utilized their mobile for internet browsing, and only 78.8% for playing various games.

Apart from being a revolutionary mobile and digital music player, it appears that iPhone is also becoming now a fashionable gaming device. A quarter of the 1,300 applications that exist and can be used by iPhone users are represented by games. This aspect, together with the improved offerings that are about to emerge, could lead the iPhone into a brand-new world of cell-phone gaming.

The mobile gaming market is not as developed as you might think. Nielson Mobile stated that millions of individuals use portable Nintendo DS and Sony PSP daily to play their favorite games, whereas only 10% of mobile consumers across the U.S. do this on their cell-phones. Furthermore, a regular mobile gamer doesn’t spend more than $8 per year to purchase new games, while a PSP user pays out about $45, and a DS player spends approximately $65 a year. The iPhone, thanks to its marvelous touchscreen, wide variety of entertainment applications, and wireless function, is on the edge of solving this problem. According to the Gartner Group research company, iPhone games will have as a result an increase in mobile gaming profits, reaching $1.2 billion, way more than the total of $845 million obtained in 2008.

To a certain extent, the reason why mobile gaming is not so popular is that the games that are available are unsophisticated or crippled versions of the amazing games designed for PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360, or PCs. Matt Murphy, leader of the iFund, which is an investment fund of $100 million made by Kleiner Perkins, venture capital powerhouse, in order to launch iPhone apps, declared that the gaming experience is not an amazing one since there are only revised titles.

Anyway, we are not sure if iPhone games will develop further than the funny, lightweight versions existing now. According to Ronan de Renesse, who works for Screen Digest, a famous London-based global media research company, even though the games that are available now are really engaging, it won’t be like this forever. As soon as the freshness of these new iPhone titles fades, devoted gamers will start searching for a more fascinating experience somewhere else.

Author Bio: The article is written by Jason Phillips. He is the writer of many gaming articles. If you are interested in online gaming then you must visit his site Motorbike Games 365.