Today there’s been a flurry of conversation regarding the iPhone in and around the GDC. Seems Apple’s little smartphone has come home to roost as the next big gaming platform, and not just of mobile games either. Some examples include a survey done by VentureBeat in time for their GamesBeat 2009 event set for tomorrow. Based on more than 160 responses coming from people registered to attend the event, 61 per cent voted that the iPhone would impact the industry the most — not surprising, given the rapid rise of Apple’s iPhone as a game platform. Among game platforms, they also saw the iPhone as having the most potential (74 percent), followed by social networks (64 percent), casual web-based (62 percent), and consoles (57 percent).
Better yet, Neil Young of ngmoco gave the keynote today, titled “Why the iPhone Just Changed Everything.” As 1up.com commented “After all, at no point in the past would hundreds of people have roused themselves from bed to attend a Monday morning speech about mobile games. Not in the U.S., anyway. Publishers have been trying and failing for years to achieve any sort of traction in the American mobile gaming market, and it’s only with the advent of Apple’s iPhone that U.S. gamers have started to take the prospect of gaming on a phone seriously.”
Think about it. Where else can you find fart-apps selling side-by-side with Metal Gear Solid?? Seriously, each and every developer has an equal chance of getting the publicity and the attention from iPhone gamers in the App Store. And frankly this enables small developers that actually have good ideas and good games to get the break they need.
But wait, there’s more! Apparently Nintendo is so paranoid about the App Store that, though their official line is “we have no intention of competing directly with the iPhone, iPod, or the App Store”, apparently according to some sources, at a sooper secrit Nintendo meeting, Nintendo is putting some plan in motion to encourage developers to develop “short-form content” for its new DSi handheld. They are encouraging developers to think about making shorter ‘applications’, both games and non-game. It should be very interesting to see what Satoru Iwata, President of Nintendo, says on Wednesday. He will be keynoting the GDC.
Lastly, it seems that Big Daddy may be scheduled for more than just the Mac soon. A question by an attendee made at the GDC to IG Fun CEO Sean Malatesta (who developed the mobile version of Bioshock) about the iPhone resulted in this comment: “Honestly, I can’t comment on BioShock on iPhone right now,” he told the audience. “It’s top secret.” Ooooh, boy! Are we talking Bioshock for the iPhone now??
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