Verizon iPhone Could Double US Mobile Games Biz

donniebaseball23 writes "Earlier today, Verizon and Apple finally confirmed what everyone knew was coming: iPhone will soon launch on the Verizon network. The hugely popular iPhone has been a hit with gamers and game developers on the App Store, and by bringing the phone to the largest carrier in the US, the installed base suddenly could get much larger. The folks at social gaming network OpenFeint believe the Verizon iPhone impact could be immediately felt this year. 'The iPhone coming to Verizon is a highly anticipated event by the mobile gaming community,' said Peter Relan, chairman of OpenFeint. 'Adding 13 million more potential gamers on the iPhone is going to be a watershed moment for mobile gaming. I wouldn't be surprised if the US mobile gaming industry doubles in revenue this year because of this deal.'"

Comments

Life without Apple

[mykos]

While I'm sure it will sell like gangbusters on Verizon, the AT&T exclusivity of the iPhone allowed the Android platform to flourish on the nation's largest wireless network.

Apple is now releasing a seven month old single-core phone against a deluge of versatile dual-core Tegra 2 devices.

Re:Life without Apple

[ZackSchil]

No one knows or cares what processor is in their phone as long as the interface is smooth. And iOS 4 is smooth as silk on that seven month old single core processor.

For games, all that really matters is how well developers are targeting your platform. I'd say they're doing a pretty good job of targeting the iPhone 4.

Re:Life without Apple

[MightyMartian]

That's what the Amiga fanbois kept saying as Macs and EGA-capable PCs were steamrolling over top of them.

Re:Life without Apple

[Man On Pink Corner]

Translation: "I've never used an iPhone 4 in my life, but that's not going to stop me from telling you all about how slow and clunky its CPU is. Instead, I recommend that you buy a phone designed by an ad agency."

Re:Life without Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who has actually, and is still doing academic research in this area, I call this statement FUD, there hasn't been any proof of this statement, and DALVIK has some very nice VM "tricks" it pulls that makes it very efficient, and let alone the huge speed boost JIT compiling added to the platform, and with the native development kit (r5 if i remember correctly) of Android, you can write code for android in 100% c++ now(and output as mostly arm assembly). Just because something has the term "VM" around it, and is(can be) written in Java (then compiled into DEX bytecode, not Java bytecode) doesn't mean it is inefficient(once you take into account the added security/functionality/etc the system adds).

Perhaps you should actually look into the technology and THEN make statements randomly on the topic.

Re:Life without Apple

[BasilBrush]

Apple is now releasing a seven month old single-core phone against a deluge of versatile dual-core Tegra 2 devices.

Yeah right. Because the average smartphone user buys based on the number of cores in the CPU. Time to get out of the basement.

I guess Android must need that extra core though, because the most common thing I read in reviews of Android devices is that the device in question isn't as responsive to touches as an iPhone.

Re:Life without Apple

[shutdown -p now]

Dalvik has been doing JIT compilation of bytecode since 2.2, so it's also native code in the end. A bigger problem there is that Java has no low-level primitive operations that can be faster with correct use (e.g. array access with no bound-checking, or function pointers, or stack-allocated user-defined types).

Re:Life without Apple

[obarthelemy]

some people do get that hardware is only part of the equation. OS, Apps, Content, Ecosystem are probably more important to the user experience. Even on the very narrow subject of performance, it may be news to you, but it's not all about hardware: the OS and the way apps are written is as important, if not more, as the hardware.

Re:Life without Apple

[Sockatume]

It's also what console gamers have been saying since the first 3D cards appeared and PCs became the more technically capable platform. Yet the home games market still doesn't seem to be in any danger of a massive swing towards the desktop, nearly two decades later. Suffice to say that specifications are not a reliable predictor for or against a game platform's dominance in isolation. What'll matter is how developer support is courted and maintained, and by all accounts that's what Apple and Google are betting the farm on.

Re:Life without Apple

[L4t3r4lu5]

Translation: "BZZZZZZZZZZZ People have differing opinions BZZZZZZZZZZ No one tool is the best at everything BZZZZZZZZZZZ."

Re:Life without Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: "I want to be modded insightful for offering a moderate viewpoint to contrast two extremes."

Re:Life without Apple

[deathguppie]

I've been hearing more from people who own Iphone 3g's and 3gs's that want to switch to Verizon from AT&T then I have heard from android users who want to switch to Iphone. A lot of Android users like me have picked out the phone they wanted within the android ecosphere and are very happy with their decision.

That said, this years Iphone will most definitely have a dual core cpu and some kind of advanced graphics processor, leaving all the other Iphones in the dust, and creating the same hardware incompatible environment (old vs new) that IOS fan boys complain about when talking about android phones.

Re:Life without Apple

[stewbacca]

Apple is now releasing a seven month old single-core phone against a deluge of versatile dual-core Tegra 2 devices.

And most people (not on slashdot) don't even know what that means, nor do they care. I know what that means I don't really care.

Wild speculation could double slashdot userbase...

[syousef]

...or then again it could just flop. News at 6.

Do you really think

[Dr. Hellno]

That anybody was waiting for Verizon? Almost nobody holds back on something they want for 3 years because of something as insubstantial as a moderate and geographically varied difference in network quality. Maybe the install base will increase, but double? Hah!

Re:Do you really think

[mad flyer]

Actually... Yes, having a phone on a network that actually... WORK... is quite a dealmaker for me... Here only softbank have the IPhone... And their network coverage in the sticks is notoriously bad... on some place you're better off communicating with smoke signals... Therefore I'm stuck waiting with my crap-phone on a pretty reliable network wherever I go... But it's driving me totally mad.

Vodafone and others on iPhone in Europe

[cerberusss]

Here in The Netherlands, we had T-Mobile as the sole distributor of the iPhone. Since one or two months, the other carriers offer the iPhone as well. Problem is, they don't always specify what works and what doesn't. For example Vodafone doesn't offer Visual Voicemail. I think this is a very nice feature and if it's missing, this should be well-noted. Other carriers offer them with a very tight data limit, which makes watching Youtube and the evening news, or using Spotify, uninteresting.

So I applaud the fact that this freaking phone is available but I'd suggest other slashdotters that they are careful and look at the whole package. And there's something else as well: there's a new iPhone expected around June. Wait a little bit for a discount, or get the latest model.

Re:Vodafone and others on iPhone in Europe

[Sockatume]

Carrier support for Visual Voicemail, tethering etc. is summarised on this Apple support document.

what is the math here?

[LodCrappo]

So I see the headline proclaiming that the mobile games business could "double".

I see a quote about adding 13 million potential new gamers.

Even if we ignore the fact that some if not a majority of VZ iPhone users will simply be former AT&T iPhone users, thus causing no change at all in the size of the gaming market.. Apple moved 10 million phones in Q4 2010 alone. The installed base is pushing 100 million devices. I guess we are also supposed to forget about the even larger number of Android devices out there, and the even larger number of new Android devices being sold each quarter when we think about the mobile gaming market.. but still how exactly does 13 million new users double anything?

Re:I don't understand why anyone would buy the VZ

[dogmatixpsych]

You would think that is logical but a lot of people don't care; they just want an iPhone now on Verizon/Sprint/T-mobile. I've been reading that online for the past 3 years. Most people do not think about or not aware of upgrade cycles and the rest. Most don't care about LTE either.

Re:old device new network.

[intheshelter]

Jeez, is every android lover just plain stupid or do they have their head stuck in the sand. I know you'll never admit this, but get ready for a wake up call. Android sales will slow a LOT on Verizon and Apple will probably catch up or overtake them. Look at AT&T for an example. iPhone buries their Android phone subscribers by a factor of 10 or more. You're going through life with blinders on if you think the iPhone is on the decline. The rest of your post is just utter stupidity. Apple led the current smartphone market explosion, Google copied and followed. Apple led the current tablet explosion, Google is busy copying and following in Apple's footsteps. Sorry, but Google has blatantly ripped off Apple's ideas for the past several years. Which is good for Google, otherwise their offerings would not exist in those markets, or they would be half back perpetual betas like most of their products.

Re:old device new network.

[texas neuron]

Apple is expanding to more networks because it apparently is out from under the AT&T exclusivity period. In other countries where Apple has gone multi-carrier - their market share has expanded. It will expand here as well. Most of the switchers on verizon will come from windows mobile, palm and blackberry since android users are still locked into their 2 year contracts. I do expect a lot of users with wait for the next model in the June/July time frame.