In August 2007, nearly two years ago, in this blog, I wrote an a article about the platform holders in which I said: “The video iPod looks like a gaming machine, it has the componentry to be a gaming machine. And yet Apple cannot be bothered with all that money they would make from putting games on it. So far. Within 6 months we have version 6 coming out. It is inevitable that sooner or later they will start to milk the gaming potential.”

Then a month later in September 2007 I wrote an article iPod=Gaming platform in which I made the prediction: “Of great interest from the presentation was the fact that 32% of music is now only available in downloadable form. This is bad news for the big traditional music publishers and might be a sign that computer games publishing will not go to the small number of global publishers model.”  Which is exactly what happened with the AppStore.

And the AppStore is now a year old. In that short time one and a half billion Apps have been downloaded. An amazing achievement and by far the biggest first year success of any new platform holder in the history of gaming. And a lesson for everyone in the industry. Consumers do not need cardboard and paper distribution. And publishers need to reinvent themselves if they are to have a purpose in life.

And maybe a lesson for Apple too. Perhaps they realise that they could repeat their handheld platform success by launching a home gaming console/media hub. The iConsole.