Apple To Open $19.99 ‘Premium’ Game Area

Ed Sutherland ()

Apple To Open $19.99 ‘Premium’ Game AreaAs Apple’s App Store grows and more publishers seek recognition, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is set to highlight ‘premium’ games priced at $19.99, reports said Thursday.

The action is viewed as yet more confirmation traditional game publishers see the Apps Store and the iPhone and iPod touch as new vehicles to reach customers.

Athough the move would allow big-name games to stand-out from the $0.99 apps, the move is being criticized for a form of red-lining. The new ‘premium’ games section would be limited to large publishers, such as Electronic Arts.

“This would exclude the burgeoning independent scene,” according to one report.

In a related development, Apple has dropped its all-or-nothing conversion of DRM-based purchases to the copy-protection free iTunes Plus format. In the past, iTunes users were forced to pay $0.30 per tune to convert their entire digital music collection, rather than on a song-by-song basis.

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The change means the “Buy All” button has been replaced with a “Buy” button for each song, according to Ars Technica.

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • http://www.otheroom.com Barry Wood

    I didn’t see anything in the ARS Technica article that said anything about Apple dropping the $0.30 fee per song, it was just about the ability to upgrade them ala carte.

  • Terry Rogers

    Hi everyone, I’m a bit late on the chat, it’s not like I was going
    any more relevant than anyone else but here is what I think.

    I think it’s safe to say that people are slightly narrow minded when
    it comes to defining these portable device. Being a “fanboy” or a
    “fangirl” is quite a comftarble status unlike simply being rational
    about the situation.

    First, the iPod Touch and the iPhone are multimedia platform. Often,
    the music player is acknowledge has it’s unique feature. The iPod
    Touch and iPhone is actually a pretty powerful device (memory, speed
    & rendering) that can actually browse the web, run diverse types of
    application and support a large array of media files.

    These device are now pushing toward their gaming aspect. The Touch
    Gen are unconventional for gaming, they are somewhat less technical
    and more intuitive (this is the same reason some may never like the
    Wii). Because of their nature, a lot of the game released for Apple
    devices are crap and of homebrew quality. It was the same for the DS
    when it came out, but Nintendo had more experience in blocking trash
    from their platform.

    It’s safe to say that the Apple Premium Games will push the gaming
    aspect of the Touch Gen even beyond their MVP app’s. They have to.
    Why? Well this brings me to my second point.

    The DS and PSP which are what people call “gaming dedicated devices”
    actually have a lot of multimedia potential. Sony and Nintendo are
    slowly but convincingly pushing toward multi-functions devices with
    new firmware, hardware and services just like Apple. Everyone is
    adventuring in to everyones territory. Thats how capitalism works :P
    Apple, Sony and Nintendo actions are not really surprising.

    I’ll watch how things work out for these guys. Fanslaves, choose your
    camp; technical=PSP, hybrid=DS, intuitive=iPod. Has for me, I’m
    pretty much versatile.