Game software in Apple’s app store is, absolutely, the most lucrative category. More than 30,000 games have been released in the iPhone App Store since its launch in July 2008, and the quantity is keeping growing. The latest research of Flurry shows that iPhone’s App Store has got $500 million in total from game revenue, which is much more than the amount in 2008 ($115 million).

According to Flurry’s estimation on U.S. video game software by revenue, Apple has taken over 5% of the video game market, while the rest of the portables have increased to 24% from 20% and the home console market has dropped from 79% to 71%. Comparing iPhone against Sony and Nintendo games sales, the result shows that Apple has taken nearly one fifth of the portable market in 2009, which is greatly impact the market shares of PSP and Nintendo—the PSP sunk from 20% to 11%, and the Nintendo dropped 5%.

Besides, with the iPad set for an April release, the market share of Apple’s portable game is likely to get further increase. With companies like Electronic Arts and Gameloft joining Apple on stage during its January unveiling of the iPad, the tablet device will enjoy elite game publisher support on day one. Unless the other major video game platform providers (i.e., Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) respond accordingly, Apple could continue to roll up video game market share.