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Oh the Games You'll Play
iPhone Gaming: ‘Something Big is Going On’
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 5:30 AM - by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Last November, I asked the question: "iPhone: The Wii of Handheld Gaming Devices?" Glenda Adams, Aspyr Media's director of internal development, told me then: "The iPhone is the Wii of handheld gaming devices. It has such unique input systems, and just enough different focus to stand out from the traditional systems. Like how the Wii has turned into the console 'for the rest of us,' the iPhone and iPod Touch are the handheld gaming systems for people who wouldn't consider buying a DS. And any core gamer that does own a DS or PSP is probably going to get an iPhone if they don't already have one."
Bruce Morrison, a producer at Freeverse, also said last fall: "In a few years, the iPod touch will probably outnumber the DS and PSP combined, 10-to-1. That will be the platform to completely dominate the handheld market." Given the fact that nearly every game at the App Store plays on either the iPhone or the iPod touch, it's clear that when anyone talks about iPhone gaming, the iPod touch is coming along for the ride.
Until now, mobile gaming was dominated by the Nintendo DS, with the Sony PSP struggling to compete and cell phones considered the province of casual gaming. The iPhone, however, takes Apple's ability to leap-frog the competition and combines it with the company's soaring popularity with consumers, serving up what is essentially a handheld computer that has the power to compete with Nintendo and Sony. Just as RIM and Palm were about to make a bid for consumers, having conquered the business space, Apple cut them off, along with Google's much-hyped Android cell phone OS.
Compare that to the Wii selling as many units as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 combined, despite the fact that no one thought its underpowered hardware and low price point would attract anyone other than little kids and overprotective, frugal moms.
The Next Big Thing?
So here we are, at the start of this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and iPhone gaming truly seems like The Next Big Thing. The platform dominated the latest IGF Mobile Games Awards, winning six of the seven categories (the Nintendo DS landed the competition's lone punch). Gameloft, a leading mobile game producer, recently said that its 2008 revenues were up 15% over 2007, helped largely by the iPhone, which has in six months given it an income level that took nine years to achieve on traditional cell phones.
And it doesn't end there: start-up ngmoco, which focuses solely on the iPhone, this week said it landed $10 million in a new round of funding. And Digital Chocolate, started by ex-Apple executive and Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, also said this week that its five iPhone games have been downloaded more than eight million times during less than 100 days of availability at the App Store. Mr. Hawkins said in a press release: "Based on the app downloads chart they just showed this week, we have represented two percent of all downloads of all kinds since we made our debut. The unprecedented and record-setting aspects of our performance suggest that something big is going on."
Something big indeed. So big, in fact, that a new iGames Summit was held a few days ago just to assess the iPhone's future. There, according to TMO's Ted Landau, some top iPhone developers gathered to discuss what they feel is "already the premier mobile phone games platform," one that has "a huge edge" thanks to the fact that it's "the only platform where the exact same game can run on both a phone and non-phone device [the iPod touch]." And when iPhone OS 3.0 arrives this summer, that edge will be even more important, thanks to many of its gaming-centric features.
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