Games are serious business for Apple

Winda Benedetti Citizen Gamer • E-mail

Let’s pretend for a moment that we live in 16^th century France. Because if it we did, then what we would have witnessed last week was this: Steve Jobs, The Earl of Apples, pulling off his white gloves, one finger at a time, and then – thwap, thwap – taking said white gloves and slapping Nintendo and Sony upside their heads.

“I challenge thee to a duel!” Jobs would have declared. “Meet tomorrow at sunrise and we shall settle this once and for all!”

Sony and Nintendo would have stood there wide-eyed, a bit befuddled by the whole thing, pretending not to care even as their cheeks burned red from the spanking. “Who…me?” they might have stuttered. “You want to go toe-to-toe with….moi?”

Of course, since we don’t live in 16^th century France (which is a shame, really), what actually happened was this: During Apple’s ludicrously named “Let’s Rock” event in San Francisco, Jobs showed off the latest iPods, lavishing special attention on the new iPod Touch. More importantly, he doted over the games that can be played on both the Touch and the iPhone. And he pointed out that after a mere 60 days in operation, the company’s virtual store – known as the App Store – already offers some 700 games that can be download and played on the Touch and iPhone.

Then Jobs topped the whole thing off with this statement: “The iPod Touch is the best portable device for listening to music, it’s clearly the best portable device for watching video, and now you could make a pretty good argument it’s the best portable device for playing games on.”

Thwap. Thwap. Most observers could see the thought bubble hovering over Jobs’ head clear as day: Take that Sony and Nintendo! Your portable gaming machines don’t stand a chance!

“The not-so-subtle message was, ‘If you’re thinking about buying something like a PSP or a DS, maybe you want to think again because we’ve got this cool device that does all your mobile stuff and, by the way, is a pretty excellent game platform as well’ ,” says analyst Michael Gartenberg, vice president of Mobile Strategy at Jupitermedia/MobileDevicesToday.com. “I think gaming is a serious business for Apple. It’s not just fun and games.”

The revolution has begun
Certainly Jobs’ announcement raised more questions than it answered. Should gaming behemoths Sony and Nintendo be shaking in their boots, like, for reals? If so, is Nintendo’s DS or Sony’s PSP more vulnerable to this new challenger?

While answers to these questions sit perched on a distant hill somewhere, there is one thing that most involved in the games business do know – the iPhone is revolutionizing mobile gaming.

Gameloft “Asphalt 4” from Gameloft allows players to steer a race car by tilting the iPhone like it's a steering wheel. The game company currently offers nine games through the App Store, but will offer 20 by the end of the year.

“The iPhone is going to make the mobile games industry into everything we always wanted it to be but failed to achieve,” Steve Palley, Editorial Guru for Vivendi Games Mobile, said at the recent Casual Connect games industry conference in Seattle.

Indeed, gaming on mobile phones has been a frustratingly limited experience for years now, with cell phone games being bare-bones things, confined to tiny screens, hampered by poor graphics and awkward controls.

But along comes the iPhone with its beefy computing power, Internet connectivity, beautiful display, multi-touch enabled touchscreen, and an accelerometer that senses movement ... and suddenly gaming on a phone doesn’t seem so limited anymore.

Meanwhile, for those who can’t afford the pricey iPhone and its monthly service fees, there’s the iPod Touch, which offers similar features to the iPhone – features that rival the two major handheld gaming machines on the market.

Apple iPhone and Touch users can interact with games by touching the screens and by tilting the machines to and fro. “The possibilities are near limitless with what can be done in games using these unique methods to interact with games,” says Matt Burris, creator of the blog FingerGaming.com.

Additionally, when the App Store launched in July, it suddenly offered an easy way for iPhone and Touch owners to download a veritable smorgasbord of games (and other programs) onto their devices. And Burris points out, “These games are affordable, lower than any other games on the market. They range from free, 99 cents, all the way up to $9.99. You don't have to go to the store to get them. All you have to do is tap on an icon, choose the game you want to buy, and within minutes you're playing that game.”

Gonzague de Vallois, senior vice president of publishing at Gameloft, says it is this combination of great device, great games and a great distribution model that has proved to be revolutionary. Gameloft already has nine games available through the App Store with plans to have 20 online by the end of the year.

“We think the iPhone is the beginning of a new era for mobile gaming,” he says.

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