Consumer spending on iOS and Android games eclipsed that of dedicated handheld titles in the fourth quarter of 2012, despite an uptick in December for Nintendo and Sony console software, according to research from App Annie and IDC.

It was noted that while the most popular games and their business models are “quite distinct”, Nintendo and Apple were “surprisingly close” in terms of aggregate consumer spend on game software in the last three months of the year.

The handheld games market saw close to 60 per cent of Q4 spending taking place in December, a significantly higher share than was the case for iOS or Android.