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Game developers are shifting their attention to the iPhone and starting to ignore the Nintendo Wii, according to Game Developer Research.

Developers creating games for mobile phones increased to 25 percent of all developers, up from 12 percent a year ago. Of those mobile developers, 75 percent are targeting iPhone and iPod Touch games. The total number of iPhone developers is more than twice the number making games for the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable.

That could represent a kind of crisis of Nintendo and Sony which will show up in a dearth of games in the future. Developers are like the canaries in a coal mine (meant to smell poison gas). Once they start leaving a platform, the games become scarce and the users eventually follow.

The data is based on a survey of 800 game developers in North America and is included in a 100-page report on the State of Game Development. About 70 percent of said they were making at least one game for the PC or Mac (including browser and social games), up slightly from a year ago. [photo credit: Kottkegae]

About 41 percent said they were making console games. Within that group, 69 percent are making games for the Xbox 360. About 61 percent are making games for the PlayStation 3. Both of those figures are within a few percent of last year’s results. But the Wii support softened, dropping from 42 percent to 30 percent. Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello exemplified this sentiment last fall when he said EA’s efforts on the Wii had yielded disappointing results; Nintendo still essentially dominates that platform.

The report shows that the recession took its toll on game developers. As jobs disappeared at big game studios, many developers started smaller studios or began developing games on their own. There was a 7 percent uptick in the number of developers employed by companies with 50 or fewer people. The number of developers at companies with 500 employees dropped by 2 percent.

The developers said that their choice of platform depended most on ease of development and market penetration. Other considerations included the skills of their team members, how portable code is from one platform to another, and the costs of development kits and other materials.

The survey selected participants from those who read Gamasutra, subscribe to Game Developer magazine, or attend the Game Developers Conference. Check out our GamesBeat@GDC conference on March 10 during the GDC at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

[Disclosure: VentureBeat and GDC are jointly producing GamesBeat@GDC].

Sony is announcing today that it will launch an original reality TV series on its PlayStation Network for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable game devices.

The show is an eight-episode series called The Tester and is about a bunch of gamers who compete to get a job as a game tester at Sony’s U.S. game division in San Diego, as well as a $5,000 signing bonus. It’s part of Sony’s push to create “original digital” content to make its games consoles more broadly appealing.

The series will air on the PlayStation Network from Feb. 18 to April 8. The show will feature a prestigious panel of judges, including comedian Hal Sparks and video game designer David Jaffe (of God of War and Twisted Metal fame). It is being produced in partnership with 51 Minds, the company behind reality TV shows Rock of Love and The Surreal Life.

The original programming is part of a growing catalog of entertainment offerings on the PlayStation Network, with the goal to create content you can’t get anywhere else, said Susan Panico, senior director of the PlayStation Network, in an interview.

“We wanted to take the strategy of providing original content from games to video,” said Panico. “We are honing in on the gamer lifestyle, which is something that people on our network can relate to.”

The PSN has more than 19,000 movies and TV shows, digital comics, games, and add-on game content available via broadband delivery to a PS 3 or PlayStation Portable handheld. There are more than 38 million registered accounts between the PlayStation Portable and PS 3 users.

In the show, 11 contestants will compete for the job by performing real-life events such as playing paintball, shooting giant slingshots, and becoming “human hamster balls.” Cast members range in age from 22 to 36 years old; the contestants include a student, a paramedic, and a used car salesman. The host of the show is Meredith Molinari, a model and host of multiple online music shows. Besides Jaffe and Sparks, judges include Brent Gocke, a manager of game testers at Sony; John Hight, director of product development for God of War; and Petro Piaseckyj, managing producer for international software at Sony.

Panico said the show is a cross of reality shows like Wipeout and The Apprentice. While testers don’t get paid that much, their job is to play games all day long, which is a dream for many gamers. And Panico said that being a tester is a great way to get your foot in the door for a career in video games. Jaffe, one of the most famous game developers, started out as a game tester.

Online, viewers can watch the show episodes inside the virtual theater of Sony’s Home virtual world on the PlayStation 3. Panico said the company is in talks to syndicate the show to other networks, so it’s possible it could wind up on TV. She said she hopes it does well enough to justify multiple seasons or spinoffs.

And in case you’re wondering, the testers aren’t all geeks or dorks, Panico said. She said people have preconceived notions about the nerdiness of game testing, but she said she finds game testers to be a fascinating and diverse bunch.

U.S. video game hardware and software sales grew a modest 1 percent in September, compared to a year ago. That pretty much dashed hopes that strong sales of hit titles released in September would come to the rescue of the console video game industry.

Sales of hardware, software and accessories were $1.28 billion, up 1 percent from $1.27 billion a year earlier, according to market researcher NPD Group. If there is any good news there, it’s that the September sales gain broke a negative growth spree. For the past six months, sales have been down compared to year ago figures.

Software sales were $649.3 million, up 5 percent from $617.5 million. Hardware sales were $472.3 million, down 6 percent from $499.9 million a year earlier. Accessories sold $157.3 million, up 2 percent from $153.8 million a year ago.

One of the surprises is that Sony sold more PlayStation 3 game consoles than its rivals for the first time. Thanks to its introduction in September of the thinner and lighter PS 3 Slim, and a $100 price cut that brought the PS 3 price down to $299, Sony sold 491,800 PS 3 consoles. Nintendo, which didn’t cut its prices until the end of September, sold 462,800 Wii consoles. And Microsoft sold 352,600 Xbox 360s. Sony sold 146,000 PS 2 consoles. On the handheld front, Nintendo sold 524,200 units and Sony sold 190,400 PlayStation Portable units.

Some optimistic predictions were way off. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter had expected software sales for September to be $750 million, up 21 percent from $618 million a year ago. While year-ago comparisions have been tough for the last six months, this time the year ago figures were much esaier to surpass. That’s because this year there were some major launches: The Beatles Rock Band from Electronic Arts; Need for Speed Shift from EA; Halo 3: ODST from Microsoft; and Guitar Hero 5 and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance from Activision Blizzard.

Halo 3: ODST sold 1.5 million units, far and away the best seller of the month. It was also the sixth-best-selling launch of all time. Perhaps the main reason that the September sales were not higher was that The Beatles Rock Band did not live up to its overhyped expectations. The Beatles title sold just 254,000 units on the Xbox 360 and 208,000 units on the Wii. But NPD noted that the Beatles Rock Band price is 130 percent higher than the previous Rock Band title. Still, it’s not a good showing considering the New York Times game critic Seth Schiesel described it as a cross-generation game that could have extremely wide appeal. Overall, both the Rock Band and Guitar Hero music games saw sales 72 percent above year ago figures in dollars.

Overall, the Xbox 360 contributed the most to industry unit and dollar sales as sales of 360 hardware, software and accessories comprised 32 percent of the month’s revenues, said Anita Frazier, an analyst at NPD. Five of the top ten titles were on the Xbox 360.

While the year ago comparisons are not that good, September was a much better month than August. The PS 3 sold 87 percent more units in September than in August. The Wii sold 33 percent more units and the Xbox 360 sold 31 percent more units. (Of course, there were five weeks in September and four weeks in August).

Electronic Arts got some good news. Its Madden NFL 10 title had a better month in September. In August, it sold 19 percent fewer units than it did in August, 2008. But with a better September, the deficit compared to a year ago is just 13 percent now.

Will October be a good month? One benefit is that Nintendo cut $50 off the price of the Wii at the end of September. But perhaps we will have to wait until November, with the launch of Activision Blizzard’s Modern Warfare 2, before we can have a truly oustanding sales month in the U.S. video game industry.

Nvidia has reportedly scored a coup for its fledgling Tegra chip used to run low-power devices with powerful graphics. The graphics chip company may have snagged a slot for Tegra in the next version of the Nintendo DS.

It’s not clear exactly when this new version of the device will ship. Nintendo launched the DSi, the third revision of the DS since 2004, in April. That wasn’t all that long ago. But Theo Valich of Bright Side News writes that Nintendo plans to launch the gadget in the fall of 2010. He suggests it will probably use a new version of the Tegra that Nvidia plans to unveil in February 2010 at the Mobile World Congress show.

If it’s true, it would a big win for the Tegra, which is also being used in Microsoft’s Zune HD music player. Nintendo has already sold more than 110 million DS units and outsold Sony’s PlayStation Portable by more than two-to-one. Sony has just launched a more competitive product, the PSPgo, which has high-definition graphics and accommodates downloadable content.

This new DS would likely be compatible with older games, mainly because the current DS and DSi units run on ARM processors. Tegra’s core is based on an ARM Cortex A9 design. Nvidia’s upcoming chip is likely to be a 40-nanometer chip, which will enable it to have lower power consumption and faster performance. That means a future DS could have both powerful PSP-like graphics and battery life that can last for days. Neither Nintendo nor Nvidia has offered comment.

Nvidia has said before that the Tegra chip took a couple of years to develop and is now being designed into dozens of handheld gadgets. The Tegra has both good graphics, a processor to run general applications, and the ability to operate as a phone.

Sony’s game division said today it is offering access codes for more than 200 games for sale on Amazon.com’s online video game store.

Gamers will be able to buy the codes on Amazon.com and then use them to download games from the PlayStation Network to their PlayStation game consoles or PlayStation Portable and PSPgo handhelds. The PSPgo has its own online retail site for downloadable games, since the new handheld, which went on sale Oct. 1, plays only downloadable games.

More than 200 games and items of game-related content are now available on the Amazon.com Video Game Store. The titles include some of the most popular games on the network, including Flower, Pain, PixelJunk Eden, Wipeout Pure and Twisted Metal: Head-On.

Sony will try to make its new games, which debut on the PlayStation Network, available to Amazon.com as soon as it can, said Eric Lempel, director of network operations for Sony Computer Entertainment America. Sony has to hand over game assets and other material, which means some delay is likely.

It’s important to get games up on the network on a timely basis, since so many used games are sold these days that there isn’t as much of a “long tail” for games (a long tail refers to healthy sales of older and obscure titles because they’re easily found online). But Lempel said there is a better long tail for the digital download games, in part because Amazon.com can offer promotions for the games, such as bonus digital material.

Lempel said the deal broadens the reach of PSN games since consumers trust Amazon.com. Those who might not want to input their credit card info using the PS 3 might be very comfortable buying something similar from Amazon.com. Amazon.com can also market to specific customers, offering them deals on the games they like, because it knows their past history of purchases.

Sony’s gamers have downloaded more than 600 million pieces of content — from videos to games — to date. Microsoft launched sales of game codes via Amazon.com in April, and Nintendo followed.

Beyond buying the games for themselves, gamers can also buy games and gift them to others by transferring the codes after purchase. Between the PSP and PS 3, the PlayStation Network has more than 29 million registered accounts worldwide.

Apple has both quietly and not-so-quietly been going about the business of tackling the portable gaming market. Perhaps presaged all the way back to the original iPod’s hidden easter egg game of Brick, the iconic and primarily music-playing device has acknowledged the powerful role of fun on a portable device.

Of course, with the advent of the App Store ecosystem and the iPhone/iPod touch lines of hardware, Apple’s ability to go head to head with the likes of Sony and Nintendo went up more than just a notch.

The “Funnest iPod ever” ad from about a year ago exemplifies Apple’s strategy in the marketplace. The focus is purely on fun, the target demographic extends way beyond the typical range of the “hardcore gamer,” and the easy over-the-air access to thousands of game titles is starting to set the iPod touch apart from Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

Today’s Apple event continued the company’s push into more traditional portable gaming territory, with an entire segment from SVP Phil Schiller on how the iPod touch stacks up against the portable playing field.

Image courtesy of Engadget

Phil reminded everyone that the PSP and DS have “no multi-touch, expensive games, and no app store.” As compared to the mostly sub-$10 pricing of iPod touch/iPhone games, typical handheld titles for those two consoles can run from $25 to $40 a pop.

Speaking of titles, Phil shared an interesting statistic about the number of games available on all 3 platforms. Here’s how it stacks up:

Sony PSP: 607 games
Nintendo DS: 3,680 games
Apple iPhone OS: 21,178 games

Wow. Even given that a large percentage of those iPhone/iPod touch games are relatively simple and casual titles, it’s still an impressive number. And with some full-featured AAA titles already out (take Civilization Revolution’s faithful translation of the console version of the game as a prime example) and on deck as well, the iPhone OS ecosystem is looking impressively like a viable handheld gaming experience even to the more hardcore gaming set Sony and Nintendo regularly compete to win over.

Schiller’s segment included a number of game demos as well, with Gameloft’s upcoming first-person shooter named Nova (pictured, below) looking very Halo-like, with stunning graphics and excellent framerate. Phil said much of what’s coming next to iPod touch gaming is possible because they’ve built-in support for OpenGL ES 2.0, “great for those next-generation games.” Blockbuster publishers Ubisoft and Electronic Arts also shared the stage to demonstrate two franchises already hugely popular on consoles, Assassin’s Creed and Madden ‘10.

With both established major console publishers and insanely talented independent development teams all lined up to make games for Apple’s platform, Sony and Nintendo had better be concerned. The latter has already indicated that Apple’s iPhone ecosystem is having an impact on its business. Sony seems to be a little bit slower in understanding the market shift, or at least continues to put on a brave bluster in public.

What do you think: is the iPhone OS ecosystem giving traditional handheld gaming a run for its money? Have you already or would you consider the iPod touch or iPhone as your handheld gaming rig of choice?

Tags: apple, handhelds, iphone, iphone os, iPod Touch, nintendo ds, playstation, portable gaming, Sony PSP

Here’s a summary post about how we felt about Apple’s press conference today and the links to the stories we wrote.

Steve Jobs made his biggest impression at Apple’s event today simply by showing up. We didn’t get The Beatles, as rumored, but we did get someone who still had a very silky voice. He seemed touched when he got a standing ovation while he walked up on the stage at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts theater in San Francisco. I was less than 10 rows up, watching him with fascination. He talked about how he now had the liver of a 20-something-year-old who died in a car crash and how we all should be organ donors. The crowd responded again with great clapping.

But there weren’t many roars of applause during the rest of the event. Apple launched its new iPhone 3.1 software to fix bugs and incorporate new features such as the Genius recommendation engine for apps. It launched some new features for iTunes, such as iTunes LP, where you can explore more data about a song or album you’re interested in. When we interviewed Bart Decrem, chief executive of Tapulous, he was excited about the chance to get more game sales via Genius app recommendations. Tapulous was among the games that Apple celebrated as it noted there are far more games on the iPhone and iPod Touch than on the Nintendo DS or Sony PlayStation Portable.

It also cut prices on its line-up of new iPods, which had more storage capacity for the same price. And it introduced a new iPod Nano with features such as a video recorder, an FM radio, a pedometer, and a voice recorder. Those features should be enough to fend off Microsoft’s Zune HD, which has HD Radio built into it. The Zune HD is coming out later this month, but Microsoft’s Zune music players have a depressingly small 1.1 percent market share.

VB’s Paul Boutin was surprised there was still no camera on the iPod Touch models.  We closed out our coverage with a photo gallery of the event.

Apple disappointed some of the rumormongers because it had nothing to say about wildly innovative but implausible announcements that had been dreamed up in the press. The coincidental launch of The Beatles Rock Band today and the release of remastered CDs for the Fab Four had led many to believe that The Beatles songs would now show up in Apple’s iTunes Store. No such luck. Microsoft, of all companies, has upstaged Apple, snaring the surviving Beatles at its June E3 press conference and getting their songs in digital form on the Xbox 360 (the game is also on the Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii). And there was no Apple TV remake, no Apple tablet computer, no record label, and no Rolling Stones. Even Jobs can’t make everything happen in a day, I guess.