Rumor: Premium Games Coming to App Store
If this rumor is true, it comes at an opportune time for Apple, which has just secured 1.1 percent of the world's mobile phone market with the iPhone. If there is any doubt to the popularity and ubiquity of games for the iPhone and iPod touch, the list of 2009 Independent Game Festival Mobile Finalists might sway your opinion--of the five finalists for "IGF Mobile Best Game," three of them are games for the iPhone/iPod Touch. In fact, of the five non-iPhone-specific award categories, iPhone/iPod touch games earn 12 of the 17 finalist nomination spots; and iPhone/iPod touch games get all of the nominations for both the "Achievement in Art" and "Audio Achievement" categories. The winners will be announced on March 24, 2009, at the Independent Games Festival Mobile event in San Francisco.
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Gameloft's Brothers In Arms Hour of Heroes |
There has been a heated debate going on for sometime as to which mobile gaming platform has the greatest performance potential. As the iPhone/iPod touch, Sony PSP, and Nintendo DS are very different platforms it is difficult, if not impossible, to come to any sort of definitive resolution--and much of how someone answers this query will likely be based on their own personal preferences. From a pure specs perspective, the iPhone/iPod touch uses more powerful hardware. On the other hand, the iPhone/iPod touch lacks the dedicated gaming controls that the other two gaming-specific platforms have. However, the iPhone/iPod touch's built-in accelerometer and touchscreen can bring some unique innovations to games that simply can't be implemented on the other two mobile gaming platforms.
Feeding fuel to the fire is a second set of rumors going around that Apple has a new iPhone in the works--based on the recent discovery of a new iPhone version number hidden in the latest iPhone firmware update. Some are speculating that this new iPhone--if it in fact even exists--will offer much more powerful, "Multi-Core CPUs and possibly Multi-Core GPUs from Imagination Technologies." Such a device would be perfectly suited to challenge the PSP and DS, along with a bevy of first-tier game titles. Now we just have to wait and see how this all plays out.