How Big Will iPhone Gaming Be? 27 comments
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This could have as big an effect on video gaming as the Wii did, maybe more. Basically the iPhone (and it’s close cousin the iPod Touch) were not designed as gaming machines. They were designed as general purpose pocket devices with an emphasis on telephony and MP3, with a lousy camera and a brilliant gesture user interface. These limitations mean that games development on this platform presents unique challenges which require plenty of innovation in order to create good gaming experiences. However the sheer volume of iPhones being sold and the brilliant business model for developers make this one of the most exciting areas of the games industry.
The iPhone 3G sold a million units in its first weekend on sale and three million units in its first month. These figures are only limited by how many Apple (AAPL) can make. App Store, the mechanic for selling non music content, has delivered 60 million programs to customers for $30 million in its first month. 2 million downloads a day. 70% of revenue goes to the developer and 30% to Apple. Steve Jobs is understating the situation when he says: “This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon. Who knows, maybe it will be a USD 1 billion marketplace at some point in time… I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”
As production ramps up and the iPhone 3G is introduced to many new big markets, its potential is simply phenomenal. Obviously it will be outselling every dedicated game playing machine. And with such a fantastic business model for getting product from developers to customers the game industry will see a veritable explosion.
One huge note of warning here. The Apple iPhone business model cuts out many of the functions of the publisher. The developer can easily deal directly with Apple. However it doesn’t cut out two of the most important publisher functions, finance and marketing. Finance will become more important as iPhone games get more complex and so cost more to make. Marketing is always essential and with thousands of applications competing to be downloaded from App Store it will be more critical than ever for anyone developing for this platform so as to get their work noticed.
And, as ever, the thieves are on the job. Everything on the App Store can also be downloaded (stolen) for free from torrent sites. Apple will have to get a grip on this very quickly or the whole business model will collapse and nobody will bother with the iPhone any more. All Steve Jobs has to do is to look at the destruction of the PSP game market by thieves to know exactly what can very easily happen to his App Store.
And this market could have been Microsoft’s (MSFT). But whilst Zune is excellent, Microsoft has been slow on its feet, lacking in technical initiative and invisible with its marketing. Being a “me too” manufacturer is no good when Apple is offering a scintillating package that is just so desirable.
Disclosure: None
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This article has 27 comments:
That said, I'd like to see Apple develop a new gaming platform altogether based loosely on the games available from the App Store. This platform will consist of goggle type device using thin LCD technology, being developed right here in NJ, that totally immerses the users in his/her own virutal world. This goggle will use an accelerometer and some type of hand held device to manipulate the gamers experience. It will have WFI built in and allow for multiple user experience via the net. It will be based on Core Audio, Core Animation and scalable to a device such as Apple TV.
Oops- maybe I've said too much. Bye.
1) Developers- Nintendo's success comes from their massive in-house development teams. Since Apple hasn't really shown the inclination to make their own games, they'll need to get other third-party developers onto their system. Super Monkey Ball is a good start, but what about more "hardcore" games (I use this term as loosely as it can possibly be used) that go beyond the "pick-up-and-play distraction" level?
2) Physical buttons. There's only so much you can do with tilting, and a touch screen can't compare to the response of a real button in time-dependent situations, like a video game jump button. Of course, this compromises the entire design aesthetic of the iPhone. I'll throw in that a stylus reactive touch-screen can be more exact than a capacitive screen that uses fingers- and exactness is good in the video-game sphere. I can't imagine playing something like The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass without a stylus, unless you enlarged everything and wasted tons of screen space.
I believe I saw somewhere a gaming device that provides the buttons you need, into which you insert your iPhone.
Zune? Msft has NO answer in the mobile space, and in the long run this will sink them more than anything else imo.
@think_tom - MSFT does have an answer in the mobile space, it's called Windows Mobile.
@ the author - How big will iPhone gaming be?!? Are you serious? How about just a little bit bigger than "gaming" on the iPod (v5, v5.5, and Classic) - as in, not very. You do realise that Nintendo has sold a couple orders of magnitude (literally) more DSs than Apple has sold iPhones. Not to mention that an iPhone is a little pricey to give to your 8-10yo.
Because even non-stolen applications sold to jailbroken iPhone users - for example the apps that are only available to jailbroken phones, such as video recording utilities - are a loss to Apple. So that should be Apple's main motivation.
www.macrumors.com/2008.../
I agree that the Apps Store will be huge. It is not just that you can run applications on the iPhone. You can do that on other phones as well. It is the total experience. The touch interface, the icon interface. the underlying OS X technologies and the Apps Store and they all work seamlessly together.
Remember, this is only version 1.0, just wait to see what develops every six months or so. And as memory gets even cheaper and chips get faster future iPhones will be even more capable. Researchers have been developing sugar cube sized projectors for some years. Can you imagine how cool it would be if you could project a 20 inch display from your iPhone?
I think this is what makes Apple so hard to value as a stock as they have such a huge upside potential, if they hit. If they miss they have nothing.
Did you do web browsing on Motorola's Star Trac phones? They had "web" browser." Does the end-user experience and quality matter- you bet. Get real.
www.youtube.com/watch?...
Add to it with the Belkin JoyPod for a button driven interface(about $25):
www.macrumors.com/2008.../
If the quality of most games gets to the overall quality of Asphalt 4 Elite, the iPhone/iPod Touch are solid locks, especially with the capability of instant downloads. People will get the affliction of not being able to stop downloading games. I'm totally impressed. If some serious manufacturers come out with some really good titles and some exclusive iPhone/iPod Touch titles, there'd be no stopping sales for both devices. I know the Touch is going to be much cheaper than it was and will be able to compete with the PSP and DS for certain. The only weakness I can see is the battery life. People will want to play games for hours and the battery is not going to hold up.
I think people are taking their fanboyism to the extreme here. Yes, the iPhone is a superb first step towards a truly usable "smart" phone. But people are deluding themselves if they think people are going pick an iPhone over a PSP/DS for the gaming experience any more than they would NOT buy a PSP because of the web browser. Gamers are always going to put the gaming experience first. Puzzle games and tilt to steer racing games are cute (and quite fun for the casual, adult gamer), but they're going get old for everyone else. Not to mention that the PSP and DS are far more capable devices than you're giving them credit for.
Just because you can get the app for free, does not mean people will no longer "bother with the iPhone". I mean, where are you going to install these apps? It's the same with iPods, it doesn't matter that you can buy music from Amazon instead of the iTMS, and put the files in iTunes. They all drive sales of iPods. The same applies here, paid for apps and stolen apps, all reside on iPhones and drive iPhone sales. Why should Apple be overly concerned?