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iPhone's Game Potential As a Threat to Java Phone Games

Posted by timothy on from the your-tempest-is-boiling dept.

Ian Lamont writes "In the runup to Apple's WWDC 2008, Chris Tompkins thinks that the iPhone's gaming potential 'might finally put the lackluster Java-based cell phone gaming market to death.' He cites the iPhone's use of Core Animation adapted for ARM processors, which he says allows for the advanced effects of OS X and now OpenGL-accelerated 3D games, as well as the importance of an on-demand store and Internet connection. Tompkins says that while certain genres lend themselves to the iPhone's touch controls, such as real-time strategy games (think StarCraft) the lack of physical controls will force developers to creatively approach the multitouch and accelerometer on the iPhone. His advice to Apple — make a compelling overture to independent game designers, and treat them like rock stars. Tompkins, incidentally, is one of several people who have recently pointed to Apple's mobile gaming potential."

20 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Umm, no. by Guspaz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The iPhone will only put the "lackluster Java-based cell phone gaming market to death" when most phone users out there are iPhone users.

    Apple has captured an impressive portion of the smartphone market, but their overall market share among all cellphones is minuscule.

    1. Re:Umm, no. by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      One big difference though is the ipod is an open platform In what ways in the iPod an open platform?

      It's not open until you put RockBox or Linux on it, and as I understand it, that's no easier or harder than jailbreaking an iPhone.
      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    2. Re:Umm, no. by Hes+Nikke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      it's a GSM device and only 2 of the big US carriers are GSM Did you know that the US only represents a small portion of the world? did you know that GSM is used in every market in the world, and CDMA is only used in the US? sure only 2 US carriers are GSM, but so are all the other carriers in the world! :P
      --
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    3. Re:Umm, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well in the UK i could count the amount of people ive seen with iphones on one hand. People are just not interested in a phone they need to pay for and have a large contract. Phones should be free with contracts. Also the iPhone is very large for a phone. This turns off alot of the mainstream crowd in the UK

    4. Re:Umm, no. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well what I mean is that its easy to write software and drivers to interact with the ipod. For instance you can manage one with Linux. This is a very well documented interface - even though it wasn't documented by apple.

      If it wasn't documented by Apple, it doesn't count as open. It counts even less because if it were up to Apple, the Linux iPod apps wouldn't exist.

      Do you consider Windows open because Wine exists? Probably not.

  2. Missing the point. by earthbound+kid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The threat isn't to shitty cellphone games. The threat is to the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. The iPhone has a touch screen like the DS and can play movies like the PSP, and WiFi like both of them, plus it has a tilt sensor and oh, yeah, multiple gigs of storage space. Once the iPhone costs the same as a PSP and game manufacturers are allowed to build for it (ie. after Monday), Nintendo and Sony are going to be entering a world of pain.

    1. Re:Missing the point. by Rocketship+Underpant · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sony will be in trouble; they will have to compete on hardware specs and exclusive titles the same way the PS3 has to compete with PCs. Nintendo, on the other hand, has shown time and time again, they will take chances and innovate with unique games and hardware to an extent that other companies will not. If the iPhone comes to dominate handheld touch-screen gaming, Nintendo will come up with something new the iPhone doesn't do.

      --
      He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
    2. Re:Missing the point. by Anpheus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you mean it might require innovation on the part of the developers?

      Dear heaven no, we better cancel WWDC.

    3. Re:Missing the point. by Firehed · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm glad you're not going to be developing games for the iPhone then.

      I've played quite a broad array of current iPhone games (jailbroken phone). The ones that were designed for button-based input - the console emulators in particular - really suck. They're functional, but the input is awful, just as you would expect when the game wants buttons and all you have is a touchscreen. The games designed around the iPhone's input devices (accelerometer, multi-touch) are far better.

      Of course, putting together some sort of RPG given those inputs would be a hell of a challenge. It's not impossible by any stretch of the imagination (I'm not so sure about accelerometer-based character movement, but multi-touch menus could still work quite well) but you'll really be looking at two completely different styles of gameplay that are centralized around the input device. I had an old GameBoy kirby game that had a primitive accelerometer built in that was used for character movement rather than the typical d-pad. It was kind of hack-ish and didn't lend itself especially well to the device, but perhaps if treated as an early proof of concept, it shows that there is potential.

      The iPhone is NOT a traditional device, and no matter your opinion of Apple, you have to admit they changed the rules. If you try to develop for it while following the rules of traditional devices, you WILL fail. So porting over your DS/PSP games is right out unless you intend to give them away. If you want to develop games that need buttons, go right ahead - but keep them on the DS and PSP.

      I don't think you'll see any real collision between the portable gaming and cell phone markets for quite a while, but rather see the two coexist with completely different styles and genres of games.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
  3. Re:Do you guys seriously believe this? by mstahl · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Nobody really buys a Blackberry for the express purpose of gaming, and it's not at all a gaming platform, but games are very popular on them. Same goes for other phones. Though gaming is never going to be the focus of the iPhone, games could be the thing that pushes some people over the edge to get one.

  4. How is the iPhone going to kill Java-based games? by Perseid · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Last I checked the only company making iPhones is Apple. There are and will continue to be many Java-based phones and companies that will make games for them.

  5. From a futurist's perspective by mrbluze · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This entire discussion about the iPhone's new bling features, in 10 years time will read a bit like the bling new features of a calculator watch. I remember as a kid how everyone sat around comparing who's digital watch had the most buttons, or whether every watch will some day tell you your altitude and temperature and all sorts of other useless rubbish.

    I smell feature-creep.

    --
    Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
  6. iPhone a threat to Java games? Fat chance by radimvice · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Even if the iPhone is enormously successful, there's no way it poses a threat to Java phone games.

    1. The iPhone's market share is a tiny drop in the global bucket, even if all the Apple-loving tech media journalists would like to have you think otherwise.
    2. iPhone game development restricts you to a MacOS development environment. This basically guarantees that even if the iPhone becomes hugely successful, its place in mobile game development will never capture more than a minority status among game developers.
    3. Unless all of the other mobile industry players spontaneously decide to line up behind Apple, Java is not going to lose ground to C# anytime soon as the language of choice for game developers.
    4. Java is a programming language and a set of industry standards for mobile hardware, not mobile phone hardware itself. Pointing to the cool new hardware features that the iPhone supports isn't an argument against java phone games, it just points towards Apple's decision not to play nice with the rest of the industry standard apps and developers out there. If anything, this decision will limit the scope iPhone-specific game development (who wants to waste their resources on such a small market segment when they can make games that will run on a much larger amount of phones out there), it doesn't pose any threat to the use of Java as a mobile game development standard. At the very least, it means that Java game developers will have to wait for Sun (or any other company) to provide a good set of translation tools that will let them develop for the iPhone's hardware in Java.

    1. Re:iPhone a threat to Java games? Fat chance by radimvice · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Why would that be an issue? If a developer feels the market is worth going after, then buying a Mac is no big deal. In fact, I'd be surprised if there were many developers who didn't have at least one Mac in their business, even if they don't use it to develop on or for. It's not as simple as "buying a mac" and clicking a 'compile game for iPhone' button, it's forcing your project cycle to incorporate the entire MacOS environment into your game development, which is a very big deal. Now, assuming that the developer makes the decision that it's even worth making an iPhone port of their game, this means that not only do they need to port any of their existing Java code over to objective-C, but they have to either (1) purchase Macs for all of the programmers put on the porting project, allotting them enough extra time to learn the quite unfamiliar OS, IDE, and programming language combo; or (2) hire an extra, separate team of Mac-capable developers just for the iPhone ports.

      The other option is to just do iPhone-exclusive game development from the start, which right away corners you into an extremely niche and unproven market. You'd be better off developing for the portable consoles (DS, PSP, etc) which have markets large enough to actually justify this sort of device-specific exclusive game development.
    2. Re:iPhone a threat to Java games? Fat chance by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'd be better off developing for the portable consoles (DS, PSP, etc) which have markets large enough to actually justify this sort of device-specific exclusive game development. One advantage of the iPhone, at least for developers who have already moved to the United States, is that the official devkit costs only about $2,000 (Mac + iPhone + data plan + developer certificate), and it can be installed in a home office. Compare this to the DS official devkit, which Nintendo will not allow to be installed in a home office.
  7. Non-Button Gaming by davepermen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    While there are a lot of possible ideas with tilt and touch only, the lack of real tactile buttons is a major problem for a lot of games. cellphones, ds, psp, all gameboys till today, all consoles, pc's all have buttons, which get used in most games.

    the iphone looks like a sweet psp, but it definitely doesn't feel that way.

  8. People play Java games? by blumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "might finally put the lackluster Java-based cell phone gaming market to death" I thought "Lackluster" was being generous. When was the last time you've heard someone say "OMG! You've got to play that 'insert java game here' on my cellphone!" Handheld consoles like the DS or PSP should be the ones quaking in their boots.

  9. Re:hm by Aerundel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What you're describing are approximations catering to an inappropriate control scheme. I'd like to see you play Megaman with your finger, or something more complex like Castlevania. I'd like to see you get past 50 lines in regular Tetris making those crossing motions you describe. Virtual buttons have no tactile feedback, imagination has nothing to do with it. They take up screen space, and what you have left is a graphically superior Gameboy Color. Gratz, you beat Nintendo c. 1998, albeit with even more cramped controls (iPhone's really thin to be playing Gameboy-style for very long). A bluetooth addon would either drain the iPhone battery faster, or require its own power source which would need to be charged also. That's not very enticing to me.

  10. Convergance by shmlco · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "PSP = $170. NDS = $130. iPhone = $399."

    Rumor has it that the price will drop, but you're missing the point. People won't buy a $399 game console. But they may well buy a $399 device that's a phone, and a text messager, and an email and internet browser, and camera, and music player, and movie player, AND a game player.

    Further, if you have the iPhone, just how likely is it that someone is going to buy yet another portable device in any of those categories?

    --
    Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
  11. Ummm, that's not much by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    For comparison, Galactic Civilizations II, a PC only game by a rather unknown developer, made 8 figures (as in more than 10 million dollars). That's one game, from one publisher, and not a major title at that. For another comparison, World of Warcraft has somewhere in the realm of 10 million active players paying a monthly fee between $10-20 depending on region. That would be 9 figures PER MONTH.

    So yes, $2.6 million is rather lackluster. Not surprising, the games blow and playing games on your phone cuts in to your talk time, but that doesn't change what it is.