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A New Kind Of Heist: Six Apps For Free

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To repeat: The iPhone Will Be a Killer Game Platform

9:50 pm, February 13th, 2008, Pete Mortensen

My colleague Chris Kohler at Wired News has a thought-provoking piece on the iPhone’s potential as a games platform. Since the day Apple introduced it, I’ve been waiting for Apple to unleash multi-touch games, and many of Chris’ sources think that the impending release of Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch SDK might let that happen at long last:

Whether or not iPhone gets a gaming-centric redesign, the release of the SDK makes it all but certain that we’ll see some touchscreen games from the development community.

Ehrenberg sees iPhone games as a sort of warm-up for a dedicated gaming system to come later: “This could be a launching point to get people thinking: Apple, games, Apple, games. A device may well follow from that that’s more tailored to the gaming experience.”

What’s really interesting is that 2008 promises to be a huge battle in mobile gaming. Nokia has relaunched N-Gage as an Xbox Live-like social gaming service for its highest-end phones like the N82 and the impending N96. Samsung could easily go this direction in a heartbeat, and if Microsoft ever does make a ZunePhone (as Zune fans believe), you can bet that gaming would be a major component of it to leverage the Xbox brand. Can Apple get there first and best? Only time will tell.

One thing is certain, however. Analyst Roger Ehrenberg of Information Arbitrage could stand to do some more research on the screen resolution of most handheld game systems:

But if the iPhone and iPod Touch are going to be serious contenders for gamers’ attention, they’ll need a screen upgrade, in more ways than one. Ehrenberg says gamers will want a higher-res display: “Right now, the screens generally don’t have the clarity to get the most out of the videogame programming that exists today.”

Um…yeah. Here’s the thing. The Nintendo DS? Uses two screens, each at 256×192, which is a total of 98,304 pixels. The Sony PlayStation Portable? One screen at 480*272, which is 130,560 pixels. The iPhone? One screen at 480×320, or 153,600 pixels. It would be the highest-res gaming platform on the market, not the lowest. That said, maybe there’s a screen-refresh issue that I don’t know about that could make the iPhone weak for action games. It would surprise me, given how nice “Pirates of the Caribbean” looks on it, but one never knows.

Gamers Eye the iPhone, As SDK Approaches

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Posted by Pete Mortensen in Rumors | Comment on this article

About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is the communications lead for growth strategy firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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7 comments

    As an avid gamer, a programmer, and a cartoonist, I’m really excited to get my hands on this SDK… If it’s free that is. I’ve been playing around with Xcode for a while, but most of my exp comes from Microsoft Studio.

    I plan on sitting down with this SDK and will try to program a game that I’ve been thinking of for a while, so hopefully I’ll be able to put my talents to good use.

    I for one think that the iPhone could be a huge game market… Everyone who asks me about it asks if it plays games too, to which I respond… “not yet”

    Brian, on February 14th, 2008 at 11:13 am

    [...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptMy colleague Chris Kohler at Wired News has a thought-provoking piece on the iPhone’s potential as a games platform. Since the day Apple introduced it, I’ve been waiting for Apple to unleash multi-touch games, and many of Chris’ sources … [...]

    To repeat: The iPhone Will Be a KIller Game Platform | iPhone Blog, on February 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am

    I predicted this about two ago. The success of the Nintendo DS was a case study for the potential of this market. I didn’t think then that a multi-touch interface would be part of the platform since the iPhone wasn’t out yet, but revisiting that topic now is quite exciting. I don’t know of any multitouch-based games and speculating as to what developers will come up with in terms of game concepts (like you brian, I noticed you didn’t give any details >_<) is really neat.

    Church of Apple, on February 14th, 2008 at 11:50 am

    *two years ago*

    Church of Apple, on February 14th, 2008 at 11:51 am

    I’ve said it before… there is a titanic opportunity for a partnership between Apple and Nintendo. Both companies have a lot in common (pioneers in innovation, forward looking, sleek aesthetic appeal, etc), and an alliance between these two just seems natural. The DS is ok, but it’s more like a proof-of-concept.. it’s not quite the gameboy version of the wii yet. But the touch/iPhone might just the right direction.

    Imagine… the iPhone’s gaming element fulfilled by a modern day instance of the gameboy.

    ende, on February 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am

    Oh, I almost forgot… extend that thought all the way to the Wii and the Apple TV. Yeah. It gets cool.

    ende, on February 18th, 2008 at 9:57 am

    [...] To repeat: The iPhone Will Be a Killer Game Platform Cult of Mac thinks that gaming on the iPhone is really going to take off after the SDK is released. They also think that if iPhone games are successful, Apple might take steps to go into the game console market and compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. I don’t know about Apple making a game system, it’s pretty obvious that they don’t understand gaming when you look at the lack of PC games on the Mac. I think it’s entirely possible, but I think Apple’s gaming foray would most likely be along the lines of Direct2Drive. Allowing people to download PC and Mac games instantly. [...]

    Around the iPhone blogosphere 2 at Playing iPhone, on February 23rd, 2008 at 10:24 am