The sale of games for handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PlayStation Vita are tanking as consumers instead opt for mobile games from the App Store and Google Play, according to new data from IDC.

Consumer spending on iOS and Android games topped sales of dedicated handheld games in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter, meanwhile, gaming app purchases were almost three times higher than those for handheld consoles.

“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 fourth quarter of 2012,” Lewis Ward, IDC’s gaming research manager, said in a blog post(Opens in a new window). “Seasonality is more pronounced in the dedicated handheld space.”

That seasonality was evident in packaged game shipments for the Nintendo 3DS, which fell from about 20 million during the fourth quarter (aka, the holiday season) to about 10 million during Q1. Similarly, PlayStation Portable and Vita game shipments also declined by several million in the first quarter, as did those for the Nintendo DS/DSi, but that’s also due to the shift to the newer 3DS.

About 60 percent of Q4 consumer spending on Nintendo and Sony handheld gaming software happened in December, IDC said.

As for the two app stores, games continued to lead app store growth in the first quarter, representing about 40 percent of all app downloads on the App Store and in Google Play. Android users, however, tended to buy more games than those on iOS.

As a result, handheld gaming revenue dropped in the first quarter, while mobile apps saw an uptick. Spending on Google Play games is projected to move ahead of dedicated gaming handheld spending in the second quarter of 2013, IDC said.

Regionally, Asia-Pacific gained about a 10 percent larger share in consumer spending for both Google Play games and dedicated handhelds; for North American Western European regions, it remained largely the same.

The top grossing game for the first quarter of 2013 on iOS and Google Play was Puzzle & Dragons; for the Nintendo 3DS, it was Animal Crossing: New Leaf.

The news comes as Nvidia opened up pre-orders for its upcoming cross PC and Android gaming device. Nvidia’s Shield will ship by the end of June for $349.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated on Monday to correct the headline.