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Angry Birds' Vesterbacka: Tablets are killing console games (video)

March 16, 2011 1:23 PM
Anthony Ha
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Frequent VentureBeat readers already know that Peter Vesterbacka, who leads business development at the company behind mobile gaming hit Angry Birds, thinks that mobile games are killing consoles. But now you can listen to his remarks yourself.

Vesterbacka spoke at a mobile gaming panel that I moderated on Sunday at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin. His company, Rovio, has become the big success story in mobile gaming, with more than 100 downloads of Angry Birds and a recent $42 million round of funding from Accel Partners. Vesterbacka said this success reflects a larger trend:

I think the center of gravity [in gaming] has really shifted so it’s now clearly mobile. That’s where most of the innovation, most of the growth is. Consoles are really a dying breed, I think. And a good example — again, you can’t do one of these without mentioning Apple and the iPad. You see the lines outside the store here … They launched that a year ago, or less than a year ago, now you have the iPad 2, then 3, then 4, and so on. … The thing is, it’s very competitive. And then you have all of the other tablets, all of that.

I think that tablets are killing the consoles. That’s where games will be played. … We will see probably four generations of tablets before there is a new console, if ever there is a new console.

Tero Ojanpera, who leads services and developer experience at Nokia, was also on the panel, and he kicked off the discussion by talking about what Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft means for developers. You can see an edited version of the discussion in the two videos below. (Vesterbacka’s comments on consoles begin about at about the 10 minute point in part one.)

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  • http://twitter.com/randygiusto randygiusto

    Does Peter have a clue how big the console market is? Has he even talked to or done research on gamers and all the segments of gamers out there? While Angry Birds may be making money in the app store, a large majority of app developers in gaming certainly are not. In my discussions with Mikael Hed, Rovio's CEO, Mikael was quick to point out that he's been at this for years and has shipped many games before he had his first hit- Angry Birds. Peter is head of Biz Dev and I can't help but think he's just trying to make headlines.Yes they just got another round of funding but to say that Rovio is killing EA and Activision and Blizard and …….. Does he know how much Kinect brought in since launch? @randygiusto @ipsosvantis

  • http://twitter.com/clonewar2 parrotcam

    Console games will always be here for the hardcore gamers, while phones will stay more for casual.The iphone and ipad have a ton of fantastic games, but they lack the depth and content of console games.

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