(Image courtesy of BusinessWeek)

Should anyone be surprised that a full 44 percent of iPad apps currently being tested on an actual device are games?

While the smaller form factor of the iPhone and iPod touch may have endeared itself to casual gamers who like to take their favorite games with them everywhere, the iPad is positioned to invade the living room in a big way -- possibly causing irreparable harm to the likes of Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, according to Gizmodo.

The reigning champ of all game platforms is the Nintendo DS, standing tall with 125 million units sold in just over five years. But the iPhone OS platform, only two and a half years old, already encompasses 75 million devices worldwide. And a recent Flurry study shows that the iPad is poised to advance that number even higher, with a full 44 percent of apps being tested on the device comprised of -- you guessed it -- games.

Of course, the iPad is being touted as a jack of all media trades. iBooks may be the new kid on the block, with video and music being “old school” by now (the general “Entertainment” category falls a distant second at only 14 percent in Flurry’s study), but apps will continue to be the star of the show, and an awful lot of iPhone OS game publishers are rushing to maxi-size their popular games for the iPad.

“The iPhone/iPod demonstrated that you don't need buttons and a d-pad to offer a good gaming experience to most people (not only hardcore gamers),” Gizmodo remarks. “It’s the same road first taken by the Nintendo DS and then the Wii. Both have a big amount of incredibly successful games that don't use buttons at all and require little involvement and time. In fact, it seems like consumers -- not hardcore gamers -- favor that kind of interaction, along with games that can be easily shared and enjoyed by a few people at the same time.”

And while one iPad shared between gamers would be plenty fun, the reality is that there will likely be a lot of game networking going on between multiple iPads in the same household.

“I can easily picture two or three people sitting together on a sofa, playing with one iPad, passing it around in turns,” Gizmodo says. “I can also imagine multiple iPads in the same household, and people playing networked games in separate screens. Or people around a table, playing a board game touching the iPad and using their iPhones. Except this board game would have spectacular graphics and be fully animated. And perhaps have remote players connected too.”

Can your console gaming system do that?