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Apple Positioning iPhone and iPod Touch as Mobile Gaming Devices

Wednesday November 12, 2008 10:07 am PST by Arnold Kim
In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs acknowledged that the iPhone and iPod touch "may emerge as really viable devices in the mobile games market this holiday season."

The sentiment also echoes comments made by Apple's Greg Joswiak, the vice president of worldwide iPod marketing, when asked about the state of iPhone and iPod touch gaming.

I think you're going to see a wide variety (of games on the App Store). And they range all the way from casual to big time action games. This is where we are, less than four months into it. Squint your eyes and imagine where we will be in six months time, or a year. The graphics capablity is greater than the DS, we have multitouch, the screen is larger and there's an accelerometer. And we have the App Store. I think it's the future of gaming.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Sega has sold over 500,000 copies of Super Monkey Ball and that about 25% of the more than 200 million applications distributed by the App Store have been games.

These success stories have started to attract big name developers, including id Software who is said to be working on two iPhone games at this time.

TouchArcade.com covers the emerging iPhone gaming market which has recently seen the release of a wide variety of genres, including shooters (Defend!), 3D platformers (Armado) and retro remakes (Crystal Quest).
[ 55 comments ]

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DMann
42 months ago
This was certainly in the cards.
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intel
42 months ago
Games on the iphone have ruined my life. My wife left me and my kids think i'm useless because i spend too much time playing. Bring on more games, i still have my life savings to spend to buy more games before my wife gets it all.
Woohoo, more games! (This is where i hope 2 wrongs make a right.).
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danbirchall
42 months ago
It's interesting that SMB has sold more than half a million copies already. This bodes well for it eventually cracking the 1 million mark. Right now, Wikipedia lists only 8 mobile phone games as having sold more than a million copies. Of course, since the Touch isn't a phone, I suppose once something sells a million copies, it'll need its own section on that list, like the DS and PSP have.
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Rybold
42 months ago
This has already been posted. More info...

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=594635

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122644912858819085.html?mod=yahoo_hs&ru=yahoo
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arn
42 months ago

This has already been posted.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=594635

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122644912858819085.html?mod=yahoo_hs&ru=yahoo


The businessweek article was slightly different. I think Jobs' comments are notable, as I've always heard that he's always been anti-gaming.

arn
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teflon
42 months ago
I think the success of iPod touch/iPhone games is because iPod touch/iPhone are excellent multimedia devices by itself. There are far more people who like to listen to music/ watch videos on devices than people who like to play games. Only the avid game players want to carry a gaming only device with them all the time. PSP had multimedia functions, but they were nowhere close in terms of user interface. But now, all these people who carry iPods anyway to listen to music have access to games. So now when they're bored, they'll whip out their iPod and play a few games. I never had a DS or PSP before, and I was never really interested in games, but now I too play games on my iPod touch when I'm bored.
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oyebto
42 months ago
how bout a comparison with the PSP? haha.. i think it has better graphics but no touchscreen.
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CalmEnvy
42 months ago
Doesn't matter to me, I don't play games to much on my touch anyways. I mean, it's never going to see a game like Crisis Core or God of War on it. I'll be sticking with my PSP for portable gaming.
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QCassidy352
42 months ago

I think the success of iPod touch/iPhone games is because iPod touch/iPhone are excellent multimedia devices by itself. There are far more people who like to listen to music/ watch videos on devices than people who like to play games. Only the avid game players want to carry a gaming only device with them all the time. PSP had multimedia functions, but they were nowhere close in terms of user interface. But now, all these people who carry iPods anyway to listen to music have access to games. So now when they're bored, they'll whip out their iPod and play a few games. I never had a DS or PSP before, and I was never really interested in games, but now I too play games on my iPod touch when I'm bored.


I'm with you there. I would never buy a stand alone mobile gaming device because it would see so little use. But if I can have it alng with my phone/iPod/PDA/etc, then so much the better.
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nowonder24
42 months ago





I'm with you there. I would never buy a stand alone mobile gaming device because it would see so little use. But if I can have it alng with my phone/iPod/PDA/etc, then so much the better.


I'm with you guys, too.

And I wouldn't restrict this to gaming. As an amateur photgrapher, I would never buy a standalone camera with the specs and the dimensions of my phone. But as it happens to come with one, I have found myself using it from time to time.
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