Interview

Android fragmentation a price worth paying for consumer choice, reckons Animoca

Nexus 7 firmly establishes the 7-inch tablet

Android fragmentation a price worth paying for consumer choice, reckons Animoca
As chatter suggests Apple is readying a 7-inch tablet of its own, so Google's Nexus 7 has firmly established the 'mini-tablet' form factor as a mainstream proposition.

That's according to Android developer Animoca, with CEO David Kim following up his studio's assessment of Nexus 7's start – in house stats suggesting it has already outsold Motorola's Xoom and Sony's Tablet S – with his personal take on the state of the Android tablet market.

Yes, fragmentation is an issue, he acknowledges, but he far prefers the choice the range of Android devices affords the consumer to the one-size-fits-all approach currently adopted by Apple.

We caught up with Kim to find out why he thinks developers should welcome the continued roll out of new and varied Android tablets.

Pocket Gamer: What do you make of Nexus 7's start?

David Kim: As we noted in our recent blog post, the Nexus 7 is certainly off to a great start.

Google has shown how Android can be placed on an affordable tablet that has mass appeal and good specs.

Is the fact your figures suggest it has already brushed past both Xoom and Tablet S a sign of its strength, or a sign of the hard time some Android tablets have endured?

Motorola's Xoom was one of the first Android tablets of noteworthy power to sell well, but it is now quite an aged product.

Sony's Tablet S is a current device but, outside of Japan, all Sony tablets lag significantly behind those of market leaders Samsung and Amazon.

Japan has a unique smartphone and tablet market that bears little similarity to the rest of the world, and in terms of Japan stats I would not expect the Nexus 7 to come close to Sony tablet products any more than I would expect the Nexus 7 to outperform the leading Samsung tablets in South Korea.

What do you think has been the big draw of Nexus 7? Is its price a major factor?

The Nexus 7 is a great overall package of price, power, screen quality, form factor plus a good helping of Jelly Bean.

How do you think Nexus 7 will change the tablet market, if at all?

Being an inexpensive, cutting-edge tablet running the latest operating system and without built-in proprietary restrictions, the Nexus 7 is firmly establishing the market for 7-inch tablets – a market that has gained much popularity since last year.

The majority of the top tablets on your list are 7-inch. Is this the ideal size for games?

I think that depends on the gamer and the games they play.

We hear from people who prefer to game on larger form factors and from others who prefer smaller screens that can be used while lying down, or that fit into smaller hands more easily.

What's it like developing for a multitude of different Android tablets?

The fact that you can go out and find exactly the kind of tablet you want – as opposed to being forced to choose from a handful of models – is a good thing.

Though there's an awful lot of complaints about fragmentation, ultimately the end-user benefits from a great breadth of choice, which translates to better opportunities that developers can capitalise on.

Some people have questioned whether developers who master tablet development might consider a move on consoles. What's your take on this?

That's a pretty big question!

I think most developers who have experience primarily with apps might struggle with the ultra-proprietary nature of console platforms and dealing with things like release permissions on physical distribution - like disks and cartridges.

Uploading an APK to Google Play - or other app stores - is simple and painless, whereas similar processes are not quite that pleasant or easy when you're dealing with consoles.

From a game design point of view, a good game is a good game regardless of the platform and many of the skills of game design are transferable between mobile and consoles.

However, as a general rule, console games tend to be bigger and more complex than mobile apps, and with good reason: they are subject to difference scale economies and need to deliver more game at a higher cost.

The visual and auditory experiences between consoles and tablets are rapidly converging, but there's a lot more to a good game than graphics and audio – most mobile games have greatly simplified controls compared with consoles, and that has a big impact on game mechanics and on what it's possible to achieve.
Thanks to David for his time.


With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font.