The Mixed Outlook for iPhone Gaming

With everyone talking about Apple's big announcement, it's unsurprising that commentators are discussing the possibilities of gaming on the iPhone. The DS and the PSP are both on N'Gai Croal's list of who is afraid of the iPhone, and with good reason. Touchscreen gaming on a high-resolution screen? Sounds like fun. TIME's lengthy run-down on the iPhone even mentions the possibilities of games on the small screen. Just the same, it's not all roses: Kotaku talks about the developer unfriendly nature of the platform, and how that could throw up barriers to the first game on the handheld.

Comments

Why even worry about it?

[StarKruzr]

You can't USE the damn thing for anything beyond what Steve envisions.

There will be no free games for the iPhone, and the pay ones will all cost way more than they are worth.

All of the potential of OSX and Cocoa will be locked up in the Apple ivory tower. GG, Steve. GG.

Re:Why even worry about it?

[anothy]

and you know this how?

a few quotes from an editorialized article recounting an informal interview do not a definitive statement on the subject make. Jobs has said that the software distribution model won't look like it does today; can we give them at least a little time - since we're still 5-6 months before launch! - to describe what that model is before we announce the death of third party applications on the iPhone?

Not gonna happen, sorry

[QueePWNzor]

I'd like to see gaming on an iPhone. But, since Jobs's decree of no external software, I doubt it will ever happen. Nintendo has nothing to fear, because it has many game makers on its side, and likewise for the PSP. I know Mac users who complain about no Mac gaming on the computers - so why should the developers foucus on a phone. Besides, what type of game cartrige (or, in PSP's case, microDVD) could it use for software? I'd like it, but I doubt it.

Wait for MacWorld 2008

[AsmCoder8088]

We all know the true reason for not supporting third party apps, the relatively small capacity (4 & 8 gigabytes), a locked-in provider, and no 3G support: Apple is leaving themselves some room for improvement so that next year's MacWorld, when they announce a hugely-refined version, they can market the device for those who aren't quite satisfied with the current version.

1. Sell limited product to eager customers, while making others upset
2. Wait a year for new rumors to spread about possible new upgrades
3. ???
4. Profit!

Re:Wait for MacWorld 2008

[drinkypoo]

I agree with everything except the lack of support for third party apps - that might very well be an ongoing issue. I don't know what it will take to get that turned around. Too little sales and Jobs scraps the whole thing, claiming there's no market (in spite of the fact that disallowing third party apps takes it directly OUT of the smartphone market.) Too many sales, and Jobs assumes it doesn't need third party app support.

My theory is that they will offer a limited selection of third party applications through iTunes on a for-sale basis only, and that most of these apps will be the equivalent of a basic cellphone game, only there will not be much of a selection.

One interesting possibility, depending on the completeness of any Java on the phone, which I would hope there would be for the web browser, is that you might be able to load MIDlets in with some kind of compatibility environment. For instance the Motorola Java SDK comes with a phone emulator... which AFAIK is just a wrapper around the MIDlets that provides the functionality they're expecting to see. Perhaps you could use it to play cellphone games in the web browser on the phone...

SJ has apparently said people who want to develop apps for the phone should contact Apple... I would assume that there WILL be a small selection of third-party applications, but they will all be Apple branded and apple-distributed. It's not REALLY a contradiction, since they'll be sold by Apple.

Re:Wait for MacWorld 2008

[Total_Wimp]

It's too bad. "Some games on a cell phone" does not equal "a gaming phone."

It's really a bummer what happened with Nokia's N-Gage. It was a great idea with poor execution. The real difference with that product was the attempt to get top game companies to write/port for their platform. I remembers seeing Ghost Recon and thinking phone gaming had arrived. It was a noble attempt. It's too bad the games were the size of a postage stamp and the phone part made you look like you were talking into a taco.

By comparison, my Windows SmartPhone has a beautiful display and generally good phone functionality. But the games tend to suck because of the lack of support from the pros.

Getting a little bit of software from armatures on the iPhone will not get you exciting games. The only way the iPhone can compete with the DS or PSP is to do what Nintendo and Sony do, make gaming a priority and get high-quality game developers on board.

BTW, what's that thing sportin' under the hood? Can it fill that beautiful display with beautiful 3D graphics? Inquiring minds want to know.

TW

FOUR great devices in one package?

[Cordath]

While it looks like the iPhone has all the hardware required to make a pretty slick mobile gaming platform, one gets the distinct impression that this just isn't in the cards. If users can't install software then the only games for the iPhone will have to come pre-installed, which pretty much obliterates the possibility of there ever being more than a handful of iPhone games. No third-party software means that what few games there are will all be made by Apple itself, which isn't good news. Apple is many great things, but game developer isn't one of them.

If Jobs sticks to his guns then this really is a lost opportunity for Apple. The iPhone's multiple point touch-screen and accellerometer could have made for a highly innovative portable gaming device even if the iPhone doesn't have the graphics hardware to keep up with other portable gaming devices, similar to how the Wii is highly innovative despite it's lack of cutting edge graphics. Apple could have had *FOUR* great devices in one package instead of just three. I'm sure the iPhone will be hacked and some amateur games will be produced for it, but that's not nearly enough to bring out the fourth latent "killer app" the iPhone could have had.

Sure...just like the Lynx!

[GweeDo]

5 hour's when gaming if you are lucky will move it the way of the PSP. It also is priced out of the gaming market even beyond the PSP. Then there is also that pesky fact that Apple has said there won't be a way to install third party apps, so all developers would have to go through Apple for distribution even.

Nintendo is probably about as scared as they were of the N-Gage.

Device integration... blah.

[The-Bus]

All this device integration is useless. A decent phone (free w/contract), camera ($100) and DS ($130) will do each job better than the iPhone. That's not the point obviously. The iPhone has all of this integrated, but we're talking gaming here. No photographer would decide which cellphone to use as a replacement for their camera, and neither should a gamer. It is inevitable that 5-15 years in the future we will finally have a gaming platform that also happens to be a phone. And then there will be a game that will be great, and you will need that platform to play it. A portable singularity, if you will. But that time is not now, and this is like discussing the Outlook of iPhone Photography. (i.e. Silly).

Certainly from an enthusiast's point of view it would be great if the iPhone was an open platform so you could port Game XYZ to it, but even that isn't the case.

mobile mmo

[Achoi77]

for now, mobile games are going to continue sticking with the 'little' apps - solitaire, poker, tetris, things like that. While there are some hack-n-slash games out there, I suspect that they don't do as well as the developers would like, especially compared to low commitment games like the above mentioned.

I'm pretty sure the industry is keenly aware and waiting for the day the market for online games to begin showing up on mobile devices. But the tech still isn't there yet. I can't imagine latency over the cellphone being considered a cheap commodity. So things that require twitch gaming (fighters, racers, rogues, co-op shooters) would be unplayable in a mobile online environment. Plus imagine the battery life? How long do you think you can play before your cell phone dies?

The first thing mentioned when my coworkers and I saw the iphone widescreen was, "dude, can you imagine games on that thing?" But what kind of games can you really play? I'm gonna need tactile feedback, flexible controls, and quick reaction time (framerate or latency) in addition to the nice graphics and sound. And considering the price of the device itself, mass market is not really an option, as nobody is going to buy this thing for their children. Remember rpgs for the palm? They did good enough for the 1-man developer, but it wasn't enough to begin to drive an industry to that direction.

iphone gaming isn't goign to make anybody rich - well, that's not true. It will make _somebody_ rich.

Untill something happens with phone companies where bandwidth and latency become dirt dirt cheap, I say the future is still in (currently) wifi gaming. The DS (and the PSP too!) still have a huge potential in that field. A pokemon MMO on the DS or Final Fantasy Online for the PSP == parents worst nightmare. I don't think we are still aware of what the DS/PSP can actaully do. Give it a little more time, and somebody will think of a killer app for those gaming devices. But in the mean time, gaming on the phone will stay small untill the market begins to take notice. And it hasn't noticed yet.

Umm.....

[crhylove]

Given that Jobs Vader already said there would be no 3rd party apps for the iPhone, you can take it as a given that some other company will make a clone that does support 3rd party apps (including games), and will dominate the iphone both on price and performance.

Jobs will never learn. You can't expect Apple to suddenly invent all the killer apps (including games!), just because for a brief second in time they have the best interface. The interface will get copied (maybe even improved upon!), and the copy will be cheaper and allow 3rd party apps. Besides which, the "killer app" for an iphone is going to be something that hasn't even been invented yet, and I seriously doubt Mac has a patent on any kind of innovation. Jobs is an arrogant fool. They've already lost this battle. History repeats itself AGAIN. End of Story.

rhY

Gaming

[hsa]

I once had a great Korean device, called GP32. It was way ahead of it's time, and it had open source development enviroment and it was quite developer friendly with active community.

What happened? There was only 1 good commercial game, which I bought: Pinball dreams. There were talks about more, but some Korean company even failed to translate Ashtonia Story (or something like that) because they thought it would not sell. They did however translate it for PSP and it is getting top reviews everywhere and selling pretty good.

So, if you have limited audience, limited quantity gaming platform, how much interrest is that gonna generate from game developers? Next to nothing really.

Then we think about PSP and DS or even GBA. They have nearly unlimited supply of old games, that can be ported to them. PSP has been getting some PS1 titles, DS has atleast Mario 64 and Mario Cart and I am definately going to get FFVI for my GBA. They have .. thousands of games available.

Then let's thinka about gaming in Mac. I have old iBook , and I am not sure should I cry or laugh. There is Myst, Blizzard Games (thank you Blizzard, keep up the wonderful job) and some open source games. That is mostly it. The gaming market on Mac is very, very limited. Can you name some Mac exclusive games? Thought so. And the competitors, they can choose what to port today, and it will most likely sell.

It also seems to lack any 3d capability. Which sucks.

Their best bet would be IMHO to make FULL flash 9 compability and let users play flash games. That is the only way they have large base of games available. Any other option is a sure loss.

Re:Developer Unfriendly?

[lidocaineus]

Actually no one missed the point. It was just awkward and lame.