Slashdot Mirror
Why Has No One Made a Great Gaming Phone?
andylim writes "According to Engadget, John Koller, Sony's head of PlayStation marketing, recently said that 'Apple's entrance into the portable gaming space has been a net positive for Sony. When people want a deeper, richer console, they start playing on a PSP.' What's odd though is that everyone knows that the mobile phone gaming market is a huge and yet neither Sony nor Nintendo has made a gaming phone yet. Recombu.com thinks that Nokia could enter the space with PSP-like devices and it has come up with a concept phone called the Ovi Orion, which would bridge the gap between phone and console, 'If the iPhone is Wii, then Ovi Orion would be Xbox and offer Xbox Live style features. A serious gaming phone for serious gamers.'"
But why not go the other way? Integrate phone capabilities to PSP or DS. It's a lot easier than creating a new platform which can never really live up to those two.
Nokia did already try it, but it lost to PSP and DS. It was semi-popular with guys in my country and at my age, but I didn't really felt like getting one. And there really wasn't any good games.
This is why Sony nor Nintendo should be looking to create a gaming phone, they should be looking to create PSP/DS with phone capabilities. Otherwise it's just going to fail.
Why a one-size-fits-all mentality? Why not use your cell phone for calls and texting, and others can use their "phones" for games, calls, texting, surfing, whatever else they want to do with it.
I know people who basically don't use their home PC anymore. Anything they want to do (email, facebook, casual games, watching videos, streaming music), they can do from their smartphone. Not my style, but good for them. I don't think they should be held back just because I only use my phone for calls and the occasional text message.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Specifically, they're designed for different interaction methods. A phone is meant to be used in one hand (zero, for handsfree), and held to the head (or in a pocket for handsfree). A gaming controller is meant to be held in two hands for maximum expressivness. A two-handed interface works best when the hands are relatively fare apart, meaning a set of controls on each end of a "stick" device, implying a horizontal interface. A one-handed device, or any device with a screen in general, is meant to be used vertically, so the screen is as far from the hands as possible, for maximum visibility.
Touch-screen interfaces are sub-optimal two, since you end up obscruring the display by using it.
"You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help" -- Calvin
Not really. Phones and game devices use vastly different technology, and even more vastly different infrastructure. Infrastructure is the most complicated part of making phones. Working out networks, contracts, etc. By comparison, the infrastructure for game devices is a walk in the park. When you make a phone, you're somewhat beholden to the phone companies which hold all the cards. Game hardware manufacturers control their own infrastructures, like XBox Live and Playstation ("home" is it called? I don't have a PS3). Also, the interface designs and hardware functionality is quite different. It's not particularly intuitive to combine a phone with a gaming handheld and not lose a bit of one side in the process. You hold them differently, the speakers locations for each are not ideal for each other, handhelds usually sacrifice some portability for ergonomics, phones must maintain an even smaller form factor. The two are really very different devices. The fact that they have screens and are essentially computers is the only major similarities. The control systems that are typically ideal for handhelds don't really make much sense for a phone. So then you either have tacked-on gaming controls which take up more space than your phone functionality needs, or you sacrifice gaming control to make up for the portability that a phone needs.
That's why contextual control devices like the iPhone are probably the MOST ideal. They're deffinitely not perfect, but they do both things relatively well without sacrificing too much. Now its a up to the game manufacturers to create control systems that are ideal to the non-tactile nature of the device. For instance, I've played a few very playable platformers on the iPhone like Soosiz (which uses large virtual left, right and jump buttons), Bounce On (which utilizes the tilt functionality of the iPhone remarkably well, for control). But on the flip side, Sega's port of Sonic the Hedgehog (which simply places a tiny virtual D-Pad) is almost entirely unplayable. This isn't Apple's fault, it's Sony's fault. Bounce On and Soosiz are both very similar to Sonic, and they play extremely well, so it can be done.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
I know a lot of middle aged people who own portable systems. Admittedly, they are usually the parents of kids who own powerful consoles.
I'm one of them, or at least I used to be. I owned a Nintendo DS Lite (Cobalt), and I liked it a lot. I bought it so I'd have something to keep me entertained during my step-son's day long wrestling matches. There's a lot of dead time between rounds. Then I found a lot of the same games were available for my iPod Touch for a fraction of the price. Besides, being "middle-aged" means that I don't really have a whole lot of time to play games anymore anyway--but gaming is going to be great when I retire! So same games for lower price, plus one less device to carry around, and no cartridges made dumping my DS Lite for my iPod a no-brainer. I've found the games on the iPod Touch to be at least as good quality wise as a PS One, which is fine for a middle-aged old school guy like myself.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
No you wouldn't. I consistantly look at my iPhone and MyTouch and wonder why no one is making a controller that the phone just slips into. The only problem with these devices for gaming is that they don't have physical buttons placed properly for gaming. So, make a 'case' that either connects via the data line, or via bluetooth that has proper buttons and directional pads. Have the controls and the audio pass through to the phone, and you now have a phone that is just as good for gaming as a dedicated gaming device.
The iPhone is totally pants for gaming. I mean, yeah, it's fine for playing chess or a scrabble-clone, but for action games I just don't enjoy it. Games that use the accelerometer are especially atrocious.
Now if someone would create a proper game-controller add-on and games started to support it, then, and only then would the iPhone be a great gaming phone. Though, Apple would probably need to either create an official game controller or establish an API and standards for such an add-on for it to really take off.
#!/