iGame Radio

The rumor of a possible replacement to the AppleTV set are running rampant, and everyone has their ideas. Today, Kevin Rose of Digg fame blogged about his theories regarding what we might see as early as September, stating that this is all going to change everything. But is it change that we can believe in?
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The announcement has been made, and the rumors became true. Not that I had any doubts that Apple would be releasing a tablet Mac. The real rumor would be what it was called.

It’s the iPad (cue Maxipad jokes in 3, 2, 1…).

What is the iPad? It might best be described as a cross between a netbook and an iPhone. A tablet sporting the iPhone OS, using a custom Apple chip running at 1GHz. The screen is 9.7 inches long (basically, 10 inches), 1/2 inch thick, and is an LED touchscreen. The sucker weighs in at about 1.5 lbs, and uses the same mechanisms that an iPhone uses for the home and sleep/awake switches. A battery that Apple claims will hold for 10 hours of normal use is inside. No word yet on whether it can be replaced, but I’m betting not unless you’re an “Apple Certified Technician”.

No USB…connecting via a dock mechanism. I’m not too impressed with that. However, there is a dock mechanism for holding up the thing and connecting a keyboard to type with. Wifi includes 802.11n, also 3G if you’re willing to pay extra. Still AT&T, but big bonus, NO CONTRACT REQUIRED. Bluetooth and GSM also included. Lastly, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB drives available.

For the software side, includes Safari, Mail, iPhoto, YouTube access, iTunes, an iPod app, a new iBook app, and instant access to all of the App Store apps currently available. The iBook app is Apple’s new ebook reader. Yeah, they’ve gone so green that they’ve decided to recycle names now.

When the iPad is available, you can buy it for $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, or $699 for 64GB. This is for the Wifi only version. Want 3G? Add $130 on top of that.

So, what about games? Well, Steve Jobs said that a couple of weeks ago, they invited a few developers to take a look at the iPad and see what they could produce. Gameloft came on stage first to show off what they had done. Nova is a shooter wherein they took advantage of the entire screen real estate to best effect. EA also came on stage to show off Need for Speed, which apparently ran quite smoothly. They were able to add additional features to the game because they had so much more space on the screen, such as the ability to look inside the car.

So, what is the future of this device? What has been the response from people? How will it do with gaming?

First, I’ll start with the response. I noticed that from those who are intimately tied to the programming world…i.e. those that are programmers, and especially those that would have the skill to tweak their own devices for doing what they want…the response has been mostly negative. They are not interested in something that they don’t see will improve performance for them. Basically, they have everything set up the way they want it right now, and the iPad won’t fill a niche for them because, quite frankly, there isn’t a niche to fill.

And I hate to let them in on a big secret that they apparently haven’t figure out, but THEY AREN’T THE TARGET MARKET. The majority of the people who will be buying this device are the folks who overwhelmingly bought the iPod. And they are much more positive towards the iPad. This is a device for the consumer to consume media content. Not for the producer to produce more.

Will it revolutionize the ebook world with the iBook app? No, I don’t really think so. And I don’t think that’s it’s intent. But I have to tell you, when I wake up in the mornings, and when I am finished for the day and spend my evenings in the living room, much of the time I’m sitting on a couch or comfie chair with my laptop open, surfing the web, checking email, and doing work that doesn’t require GHz in speed. Or just playing games that don’t require Teh Pro System to play. This would be the perfect fit for me, because lugging the Macbook Pro around the house is a pain in the butt. And I’m quite certain a significant portion of the population of the US, Canada, Europe, and even Asia will probably agree.

As far as gaming is concerned, obviously you’re not going to be playing Dragon Age: Origins on this thing. And why would you want to? This is the perfect device for the online gaming scene. I hesitate to use the word “casual” at this point, because that word tends to conjure up images of hidden object and puzzle games, when that industry has grown far past that point. The increased real estate allows for a large number of choices that the iPhone did not provide before in gaming.

So, will this actually go anywhere? That’s super hard to say. Frankly, at this point, I’m on the fence about it. I’m excited by the gaming potentials regarding it. If I were a consumer and I was looking for a new electronic device for media consumption, I’d be interested in this device. But I think that I’ll have to really play with it a bit to decide just how useful it is in the everyday world. I think I’ll take the wait and see attitude at this point.

Oh, and for the record? If there were more women in the tech industry, tragedies like calling an electronic device an “iPad” wouldn’t happen. Just sayin’.

Ever since the job posting on the Apple jobs site was discovered, the Internet has been speculating about what that might mean for Apple. Is Apple going to start developing games as a first-party publisher? That’s what everyone wants to know. That’s what many people want to believe.

But, according to an article at Slide-to-play, not necessarily so. Rob Fahey, a self-described games industry analyst, was interviewed and stated his thoughts that Apple was probably scrambling to play catch-up with making its iPhone APIs and platforms more game friendly.

“It’s leaping to conclusions to assume that Apple’s hiring suggests a secret internal game development team,” Fahey said.

According to Fahey, Apple moving into development would upset the balance too much to be worth it. It could cause burgeoning development teams to be outshone by the platform’s own creator.

“Even if Apple did have ideas about entering game development, it’s hard to see how they’d make it work,” he continued. “They’d end up alienating and annoying their developer community– not new ground for Apple, admittedly– and would face accusations of favoritism for their own titles in the App Store, no matter how scrupulously they obeyed their own rules.

Now, where I’m all for believing that Apple has no intention of jumping into first-party development/publishing of games…on the iPhone or Mac…I disagree with Fahey’s reasoning behind why. For one, I don’t believe that Apple would ever intend on getting into game development because Apple doesn’t see itself as a developer of software that doesn’t directly support its hardware or operating system. Consider that Apple could probably come up with a really good project management system (something to compete with MS Project, for example). But they never have. Because project management software doesn’t directly support the OS.

“What about iWork?” I hear you ask. Well, first off, iWork has been in development for years…not something that Apple is just now considering moving into a crowded market. Secondly, most everyone who uses a computer uses a word processor and some simple spreadsheet tools. Not so for project management.

“Ah,” I hear you say. “But what about iTunes!”

And to that I respond with my other reason for why Apple is not, and won’t in the foreseeable future, end up in the game development business. And it has nothing to do with Fahey’s ideas of “favoritism” in the App store (think Microsoft Games and Xbox Live Arcade). It has to do with favoritism within Steve Jobs. Jobs just doesn’t like games. He never really has. He *loves* music. Most every single keynote includes music of some kind, and Jobs has even been up there playing the guitar himself. He promotes music in software all the time.

But never games. The last time games were mentioned in a keynote that I remember was back in, maybe, 2004 (until Schiller’s keynote of WWDC this year).

I’m glad if Apple is working hard to make the iPhone a better gaming platform. Maybe they will actually work hard to make the Mac a better gaming platform as well. But don’t expect any games out of Apple anytime soon.

An article from Popular Science magazine a couple of days ago talked about how New York is launching a public school curriculum around playing games. The Quest to Learn (Q2L) school, based in Manhattan, is using games such as Little Big Planet and Civilization, as well as board games such as Settlers of Catan, to contribute to the learning process.

An excerpt from the article:

In one sample curriculum, students create a graphic novel based on the epic Babylonian poem “Gilgamesh,” record their understanding of ancient Mesopotamian culture though geographer and anthropologist journals, and play the strategic board game “Settlers of Catan.” Google Earth comes into play as a tool to explore the regions of ancient Mesopotamia.

The school idea came from a nonprofit called Institute of Play, with support from Parsons School for Design. Currently, the school receives financial backing from donors such as the Gates Foundation, Intel, and the MacArthur Foundation up to about $1 million, but New York City plans to take over funding by 2015.

in reading the article, one of the things that struck me was not the article itself, but the comments afterward. Many of the comments were all excited by the idea of a game-based school curriculum, one that diversified the education process and provided multiple means for learning to get into the brain. But there were a few who questioned it, and every single one brought up as one of their main (if not their main) issue being how much it would cost. And the way they worded it, their opinion came across as “how can I reduce my children’s education cost as low as possible?”

Excuse me? This is our children’s future we’re talking about here. It costs, people, to educate them properly. If you weren’t willing to put the money in for a good education, you should have bought the condom. There’s a cheap cost for you. And a one time expense.

…but it won’t be Apple’s. Via the iPhoneGamesBulletin, Archos has announced that it will unveil the Android tablet and associated app store (called AppsLib) at an event in Paris on September 15th. The tablet will use the Google Android OS and features OpenGL graphics. Pocketables notes:

According to the development guidelines on the site, the new device (puzzlingly referred to as the Archos 5 Internet Tablet throughout) will feature a 5-inch WVGA touchscreen, 720p video support, HDMI output, and natively embedded OpenGL libraries. This is in keeping with all the early info, so it may be safe to assume that the rest of the details (up to 500GB storage, 7-hour video battery life, Cortex CPU, 3.5G connectivity) still hold true as well.

That’s a mighty nice looking tablet. And that OpenGL aspect is going to be interesting to a lot of folks, mobile developers included. Creating cool games on the Archos tablet? 3D graphics with 7 hour battery life, 3.5 G wireless, 720p video, Cortex CPU? You betcha! Especially as more and more games are going to abandon the traditional downloadable or retail box format and go to the online play method.

I hope Apple is listening. Cause that Cortex CPU is going to look mighty inviting to iPhone developers who might just want to try and hack the iPhone OS onto the tablet and see what happens. I know I would.

I’m a big fan of history…both reading about it and writing in it (fiction). So, whenever a game comes out set in a historical setting, I always want to play it (damn you, Corey, for taking Rome: Total War from me!!). Anyway, when I saw this game mentioned via GamePolitics, I thought “coolness, a chance to play a game set in the early part of the first millennium of the CE!”

That is, until I sent an email to the developer asking about the platform choices and got this back:

“Thank you for your interest in our projects, unfortunately we do not support Mac Platforms. Best regards.”

Look, people, what is with you and your incessant need to support a platform that touts how wonderful it is that it’s most recent OS beta matches and sometimes exceeds the benchmarks in gaming of a previous OS years out of date, while ignoring an OS that has created wonderful advances in gaming, including the recent decision to work with NVidia to use an awesome video card that works especially well with the company’s most advanced hardware and software?

Oh, yeah. You don’t care.

/rant

 

Host Omaha Sternberg continues her Gaming Macworld 2009 series, covering Macworld Expo 2009 from a gamer’s perspective. Featuring an interview with Brian Akaka of Freeverse about their iPhone games, and whether they are leaving the Mac game market. Also, an interview with Jon Parshell of Codeweavers about Crossover Gaming for the Mac, the Lame Duck Challenge, and what the future of CodeWeavers brings for Mac gamers.

Check out the podcast by clicking the player above or downloading from the rss feed.

Actually, I flew in from Macworld Expo 2009 a couple of hours ago. I just finished getting back from eating. Macworld was awesome, tiring, worrying, stressful, and full of surprises. Despite the fact that there wasn’t even a poor excuse for a game pavilion this year (game companies were scattered all over the place), and that several of the stalwarts that we associate with Mac games (Aspyr Media, MacSoft), weren’t there, there were still a significant number of gaming companies, both software and hardware, attending.

I chatted with CCP (EVE Online), Transgaming, Codeweavers, Freeverse, Feral Interactive, Software MacKiev, Ambrosia Software, and VMware. I also talked to some on the hardware side, including NEC about their giant curved screen (a new iteration is due out soon), and i2i Stream about the application of their technology to gamers.

All in all, I have a ton of interviews that you’ll be hearing over the next week or two, and Corey and I are set to do a recording tomorrow with a full overview of what Macworld was like…I’ll get it posted by tomorrow evening.

BTW, Feral Interactive, what was with the Feral t-shirts with the BioShock logo on the backs? They were all wearing them. I asked one of them why, and he said, “Well, we’re all just big fans of BioShock, we just wanted to wear our BioShock t-shirts today.” Yeah, and you’re publishing Black & White 2, but I didn’t see you wearing t-shirts with that logo on the back. Hmmm. A ton of food for thought there.

 

I’ve posted Episode 70, in which Corey and I chat about Apple’s decision to pull out of Macworld in 2010 and the impact that will have on Mac games at Macworld, the Worlds.com MMO suit against NCSoft (I mean, c’mon!), and the conclusion of the used game market commentary…how does this controversy really affect Mac games?

Also, great reviews of ToCA Race Driver 3 by Feral Interactive, FlatOut 2 by Virtual Programming, and Build-a-lot 2 by Red Marble Games. So, check it out!

Ambrosia Software announced today that they’ve updated EV Nova, their space-based strategy shooter, to include a Universal Binary so now everyone can blast away in space. The update also includes some bug fixes and compatibility with MacBook and MacBook Air systems with an Intel GMA X3100 video card.

EV Nova is the third game in the Escape Velocity series, thrusting you into a sprawling universe dominated by a myriad of warring factions, each sharing a common bond, but so philosophically different as to make conflict inevitable. Wait, wouldn’t that really describe just about any large group of sentient beings, though?

Common Bond: We all breath air.
Philosophical difference that makes conflict inevitable: we each believe that the other should be dinner.

Ummmmmm…..