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The Mixed Outlook for iPhone Gaming
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 12, 2007 04:56 PM
from the a-lot-of-talk-little-content dept.
from the a-lot-of-talk-little-content dept.
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.
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Why even worry about it? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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And even if not - the thing will be hacked in two days, devkits leaked and Apple will have to allow it de facto. See the story of Boot Camp.
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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?
ah, but what choice do those poor people have? (Score:2)
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I wouldn't really say OS X is based on FreeBSD.
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According to UNIX History [levenez.com], the first release of NeXTSTEP used 4.3BSD, so it's fair to say it's not based on FreeBSD. However, it should be noted that OS X frequently incorporates code from FreeBSD. This is pretty much the status quo in the fami
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Apple is using a bunch of open source libraries, software, and open standards, but so is Microsoft.
Apple deliberately keeps key parts of their platform proprietary, thereby effectively making the entire platform proprietary. And they do that even when equivalent or better open source alternatives are available.
and innovate heavily in open standards?
Like what?
Developer Unfriendly? (Score:4, Interesting)
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In other words, yes.
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There'll be no Flash or Java [nytimes.com] on the first iteration of these phones, although that's probably because involving too many developers would kill the secrecy around this product. The next revs will probably support them.
Another kicker is: no video support in the current camera (although that'll probably change soon). Lots of people use their cameras to record video.
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Well, that pretty much eliminates the whole fucking point of having a browser that doesn't display a subset of HTML. If you're giving me a full web browser, you NEED to give me flash and java. Otherwise large portions of the web that would otherwise be accessible because I can view webpages ar
Yes (Score:2)
Come on.
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Can it use unsigned widgets?
Developing SWF is cheap now that the Flex tools are out, but doesn't the software to make "resources" (graphics and sound) to add to your SWF still cost $700?
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Not gonna happen, sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait for MacWorld 2008 (Score:3, Insightful)
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!
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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 applicatio
Re:Wait for MacWorld 2008 (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Parent
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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.
That's exactly what Apple does. Look at their product history. The first version announces some really radical concept, but it generally sucks. Some people must have said technology and essentially pay for Apple's development costs. Then the next year they have a version that doesn't suck.
FOUR great devices in one package? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:FOUR great devices in one package? (Score:4, Interesting)
Phil
Parent
Don't call us; we'll call you. (Score:2)
Because they would want to court only commercial developers, not developers who produce free software, freeware, or shareware as a hobby. You can't get a cut of the revenue if a game sells for $0.00. The game console makers have the same mentality.
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Open source has its place, and it's yet to show its strength in the gaming world. I don't know if that is possible, as games are so expensive to think up design graphics for, etc
Sure...just like the Lynx! (Score:3, Insightful)
Nintendo is probably about as scared as they were of the N-Gage.
Device integration... blah. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Ok tell you what, let's meet back here in a year and we'll see who's right, you or THE PLANET.
I mean, seriously.
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...a good theory. Similar theories include "Wordpad or TextEdit is all the wordprocessor most people need, and if you need more you'd be better off with a dedicated DTP program than a bloated jack-of-all-trades like Word". Absolutely true, but reality hasn't caught up yet.
Apple could stick to the "dedicated is best" principle (its been their line in the past) but
mobile mmo (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
"Tetris" ... "low commitment" ... wha? (Score:2)
for now, mobile games are going to continue sticking with the 'little' apps - solitaire, poker, tetris, things like that. [...] low commitment games like the above mentioned.
If Tetris is so low commitment, then what's this [youtube.com] and this [youtube.com] and this [youtube.com] and this [youtube.com]?
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you misinterpret what I mean by low commitment. What I mean by low commitment I mean games that don't require an extended learning curve or extended set of rules just to grok the gameplay the designers had in mind. You can pick up and learn the rules for tetris within 5 minutes of play. Same thing with pong. Along with various card games. Computer role playing games like final fantasy or Oblivion, not so much.
You can play a round of tetris, for example while waiting for the bus. Not with RPGs, or even rogu
just another ipod or a PDA? (Score:2)
It's not clear how they'll close their platform. Some people have suggested Widgets might still be usuable, or the fact that you can still play flash games through web pages. For a couple of things, widgets might be good enough
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That Gizmodo demo (Score:2)
augmented reality gaming - problems (Score:2)
Umm..... (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Oddly enough I would buy it if it ran windows (Score:2)
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Gaming (Score:2, Insightful)
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 sel
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- a $500 phone + 2 year service contract with ridiculous data charges.
I'll buy:
- the tiny phone I'm already using ($0)
- a $200 PSP or a $129 DS (Lite), and then spend ~$50-$100 for a 4 gig flash memory card to hold all my wifi-enabled 3rd party apps, homebrew games, and ROM dumps of games I own, dating back to the NES days.
To recap: I'll sit back and play with fun 3rd-party (and 1st-party) toys while you pray to your little statue of Steve Jobs to pleeeeas