Today, there was a piece analyzing recent reports whereby Apple was well on its way to wipe out DS and PSP from the handheld gaming sphere, and that it would therefore seek to address a number of weaknesses in its next iteration of the iPhone (and iPod Touch) that would add a few currently missing features that should bridge the – already slim – gap to the PSP.
- Enhanced graphics (to address its current lack of loading complex textures);
- improved processing capabilities (through its own ARM chip, which is currently developing; this follows the acquisition of PA Semi last spring);
- Better camera (minimum 3.5 mega-pixels) and video-recording.
It is quite breathtaking: it took them 3 months to hit 100m. Then, only 5 weeks after they announced that they went past 300 million downloads, Apple announced that they just raced past 500 million. This means 200 million downloads in 5 weeks, 40 million per week, 5.7 million per day or 4,000 per minute! Get that! Whilst numbers don’t equate to happiness, I sincerely hope that Steve Jobs will be taking some comfort from this and recover well.
A recent article discussed the rise and rise of the iPod Touch (that’s the iPhone without the phone). It apparently surged to the top of Amazon‘s sales charts, and mobile ad firm AdMob reports that ads served to the device more than tripled between November and December to 292m. This growth is said to even shadow growth of iPhone ads served and is being called, well, unprecedented. People are said to shun the forced marriage with AT&T’s long-term phone plan that come with the iPhone. Makes you think (if you’re an operator).
“Whether you chose to play on your DS or listen to music on your iPod, we’re already in the same competitive space for time.”And whilst one could argue about the pound-for-pound comparison of pure touchscreen vs devices with gamepads for certain types of games, the huge upside Apple has created is the hassle-free and easy distribution model for games: a DS developer needs to buy the cartridges (and pay for them up-front), find retailers, and then sell. This means huge cash outlay and very significant commercial risk over and above the development cost, making for a much less risky business model. And as to the input: some of the accelerometer-powered racing games are significantly better to control than with any game pad.
Little-known handset manufacturer Fly has announced its new MC100 handset which features both Java MIDP2.0 / CLDC1.1. as well as – and that is the cracker – support for Nintendo NES, SNES, Gameboy and Gameboy Colour game formats. There are some neat dedicated gaming buttons and a rather useful-looking “D-pad”.
The handset is powered by a Yamaha chip and also has an MP3-player. Whilst Fly seems to be mainly active in Eastern Europe (that’s at least the only region where they have service centres), the handset is retails at the not too shabby price of $270 a pop; where it goes on sale, remains a miracle: the currency would suggest the US but perhaps it is Russia after all?
Also, the issue if these games are legit remains a bit in the dark. Fly only says that “games (nes/smc/gb/gbc) can be freely downloaded from the Internet and set up in your Fly MC100″.
This would suggest that Nintendo is not involved in this, and there is indeed no active (or passive for that matter) endorsement from Nintendo anywhere to be seen. So this would almost certainly exclude any “proper” Nintendo games from being included (unless Fly wants to risk a visit from Nintendo’s legal eagles). All a bit odd really but, boy, would it be cool were it legit…
