Despite their occasional protests t' the contrary, both Nintendo 'n Sony have seen the pervasive mobile market take chunks a the portable gaming industry. The mobile app space burgeoned as game developers undercut each other constantly, in a race toward 99 cents that set a buck as the de facto price point for the new marketplace. This, in turn, made a massive price disparity between mobile games 'n their handheld competition, which tends t' retail for much more. Why buy a $30 DS game, when ye can buy 30 games for the same price?

However, we be now seeing yet another race all the way t' the bottom: free. Even as the PC space be largely adopting a free-t'-play, microtransaction-driven business model, the shift be similarly occurring in the mobile market. Recent F2P hits have started a run a similar titles, with some paid apps adopting a free-t'-play option.

The change began subtly. Rovio's breakout hit Angry Birds may have stuck near the top a the Top Paid Apps charts, but the Top Grossing arena be ruled by little blue men early last year. Smurfs Village spent months as the Top Grossing app, no doubt bolstered by co-marketing for the then-upcoming film. Still, the free app had an inviting price point, 'n even a few 99 cent purchases per user would easily push it above the revenue for a one-time dollar fee. Then, Tiny Tower became the talk a the iOS App Store blogosphere, using a similar model inspired by social gaming on Facebook, even garnering recognition as Apple's official Game a the Year.