Steve Jobs Revolutionizes Another Industry: Gaming

Leander Kahney ()

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Earlier today Steve Jobs told the New York Times that the iPod touch is first and foremost a gaming device, and that’s why it doesn’t have a camera. We’re not entirely convinced, but look at this chart Apple trotted out this morning’s “Rock & Roll” event.

It shows the number of game and entertainment titles for the iPhone/iPod platform. Apple has almost five times the number of titles as the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS combined.

That’s a huge number. Yes, a lot of those titles are fart apps or simple throwaway games. But that’s still a lot of titles. My kids haven’t touched their GameBoys since we got an iPod touch.

This is why the iPod touch was upgraded with beefier CPU and graphics — to make it a better gaming machine. And no wonder every game company under the sun is rushing out apps — the iPhone/iPod platform is taking over. Add another industry to Steve Jobs’ quiver: PCs, digital music, computer animation, mobile internet and now games.

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Via Silicon Valley Insider.

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About the author

Leander Kahney

is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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Posted in Apple, Gaming, iPhone, iPod Touch, News |

  • Charli

    i never expected to see a camera on the touch. that and one good VoIP app and it would cut into the iphone sales. plus the way they have been hyping games on the touch. the announcement was just what I expected to see.

  • Krassus

    phone apps. . . .
    who cares. . . .
    the ipod touch a gaming device . . . that’s a joke

    Don’t ever say Steve Jobs, mister apple revolutionized gaming. . . .saying he did that through phone apps is just stupid.

    he’s using the one item in his line that is making money and making apps for it. Making a profit by doing that is child’s play. Tell him to start making some actual desktop games and we will see what happens. To say he is revolutionizing the gaming industry is something only a “noob” or non-gamer would say.

    this is just a depressing, stupid and idiotic article when apple starts making some real heavy game playing games that make a nice profit like “left 4 dead, Half-life, Call of duty, WoW”, etc . . . only than will he have maybe started revolutionizing the game industry. Tell then. . .

    Don’t make such a bold preposterous and idiotic statement.

  • Jesse

    That’s not exactly true from a gaming perspective. Most of the industry scoffed at Apple’s remarks today, myself included. The view their conveying is totally not what it truly is.

    20,000 of those 2,100 games are shovelware e shallow clones of other games and that isn’t a critic remark either.

    Apple has yet to realize gamers don’t want buttons and feedback to go away. You look at Xbox and their Natal project is just a facet of their product; Apple seems destined to free up the middle man, and that is just not the philosophy of game development and product-placement we want.

    Nintendo DS (not gameboy, that was about 8 years ago >_>) is a huge platform for games; around the same market share as iPod in the portables market if not higher. PSP has a ways to go to catch up but there is really no wedge-room for the Touch, especially with the philosophy and mission their implying.

    Gamers want deep, compelling/interactive gaming experiences. That doesn’t mean throw in some future tech you always saw in the movies on the advancement of media and say this is what gamers want/need.

    I’m a huge Apple supporter, but that comment this morning was pretty ignorant and unsubstantiated on the gaming front.

    If all they have forward looking is a halo rip and a unequal port of AC2 then they still haven’t brought the heat in gamer’s eyes.

  • keith

    the nintendo DS has a camera. not a reason for iPod touch to not have a camera.

  • duncan

    Boy oh boy, you gamers really need to develop a sense of humor.

  • gimpymw

    While most “Gamers” may feel that the iphone is sub-par compared to a PSP or Nintendo DS, Apple has chosen not to specifically cater to this group of people. “Gamer’s”, compared to the rest of the population are a minority. What Apple has done, with their devices, is open gaming to the rest of the population which is why they are successful. Generally you’ll make money off a large group of people than with a small group of people.

    What apple has also done is it’s managed to gain a dominant foothold in an industry it did not compete in previously. Apple doesn’t generally maintain a foothold as status quo. Rather it uses it to parlay it’s foothold into something far grander.

    A tablet running a more robust OS, something closer to OS X on a Mac, could give a user an experience closer to a console or PC Gaming system. Combined with the iTunes market and the population’s familiarity with the iPhone/iPod Touch, it could take gaming to the next level for Apple.

    Integrating and consolidating the Apple gaming experience through Apple TV and or people’s personal Apple computers would be the next step. It could potentially create a “Gaming” ecosystem where one could share that experience with multiple people using whatever Apple device one has, wherever he/she may be at the time.

    I can see this as Apple’s ultimate goal with gaming. If they can market it and make a profit it’ll happen it’ll sweep the “Gaming” elite and their “Gaming” systems out from existence.

    If you’re one of the “Gaming” elite be afraid. If you’re one of the rest of us you might be in for a something new and interesting.

  • Miranda

    The graph is misleading. If you could call each line a 5,000 mark, it appears that the PSP is below 0 and the Iphone OS is almost at 25,000. Also, if we were to include Game and Entertainment instead of just games that would include movies and tv shows on the PSP as well which would put it at about 16,000.

    Another point of interest, the DS already has a built in cam and the PSP has a camera as an added peripheral.

    Fail.