Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, iPod Family, Apple, App Store
Apple positions iPod touch as a gaming device
Today might be remembered as the day that Apple finally, officially entered the handheld gaming market. During the "Let's Rock" event this morning in San Francisco, Phil Schiller took the stage to do an extended demo of a few upcoming games for the iPhone and iPod touch. He first demoed Spore Origins, a game that only recently has arrived on the iPhone's App Store, made by EA as a mobile version of the popular PC/Mac game. Real Soccer, above, was shown off as well, and finally EA's Need for Speed rounded out the pack.
It's a shame that Apple chose to spotlight games from giants like EA rather than some great games from actual iPhone developers, like the much-loved Aurora Feint or the upcoming Rolando. But the most interesting thing about the presentation today wasn't even the games they showed off -- it was the fact that Steve himself called the iPod touch one of the best gaming devices on the market. Apple appears to be positioning the iPod touch as not just a music player with a multitouch screen, but an actual gaming and media device for this holiday season. That would be a smart move -- with a few more quality games in the App Store, Apple could move the touch away from its own product lines (the other iPods and the iPhone), and step up to start taking on older gaming handhelds like the PSP and DS.
It's a shame that Apple chose to spotlight games from giants like EA rather than some great games from actual iPhone developers, like the much-loved Aurora Feint or the upcoming Rolando. But the most interesting thing about the presentation today wasn't even the games they showed off -- it was the fact that Steve himself called the iPod touch one of the best gaming devices on the market. Apple appears to be positioning the iPod touch as not just a music player with a multitouch screen, but an actual gaming and media device for this holiday season. That would be a smart move -- with a few more quality games in the App Store, Apple could move the touch away from its own product lines (the other iPods and the iPhone), and step up to start taking on older gaming handhelds like the PSP and DS.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jonathan ober said 2:27PM on 9-09-2008
I dont want to jump the gun, but this could very well be a good thing. Nintendo has been on top for awhile and without much competition have gone asleep. This should help push Nintendo with a new DS or handheld to 'fight' for the top spot. It will take a while to dethrown the DS, but already the ipod touch has games, music, movies, internet...it's like a PSP and DS made a baby.
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iErik said 2:29PM on 9-09-2008
this is really cool, goAPPLE!!
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Niels K. said 2:42PM on 9-09-2008
W/out real controls (d-pad, analog pad, some buttons) the iPod Touch just sucks for gaming. I tried a lot of games and they are quite nice but even racing games for example can't be controlled as good as with traditional controls (not too mention real steering wheel-controls).
Graphics of games that are said to have real good graphics are even worse imho than those of the Nintendo DS (not to mention PSP) and the best games are casual games. It's nice to have them on my multimedia device but for real gaming I prefer a dedicated device with some buttons
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Andy said 5:18PM on 9-10-2008
As Niels said, realistically the ipod will never be as good for gaming as a dedicated device, such as a psp/ds. That said, there are some pretty solid 'arcade' style games available, such as enigmo etc, and even some more adventurous ones, such as monkey ball/Crash Bandicoot.
By the way, seeing as you havn't mentioned it yet, for touch fans, i'd just like to point out that a new ipod touch was annonced, with a speaker!! Woop Exactly what I wanted. This seels the deal for selling my old Ipod, and upgrading to this lil beauty.
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moose said 2:43PM on 9-09-2008
The event was a complete disappointment regarding the iPod touch.
I think it's telling that the only "news" headline that TUAW could generate about the touch was about how Apple is marketing the device, not about changes/improvements to the device itself. Who cares? It's the same device. All that functionality was there already.
Seven months since the last revamp, and we can't get a 64GB touch? What a joke. Oh wait -- I can get a nano in orange now! Now that's something to write home about.
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Jeff said 2:49PM on 9-09-2008
Could someone point me in the direction of a real "operator's manual" for Aurora Feint? I'd love to know what I'm doing. And I can't seem to find a straightforward set of operating instructions (that video you link to is too small to see anything) ;-)
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willy the impeached said 2:52PM on 9-09-2008
Well if Steve said so then it just absolutely must be so. Clearly. Wouldn't be spin. No chance that was salesmanship. Hmmmm. Now if the lord messiah Barrack Hussein Obama were to ssay this as well ... every Koolaid drinker in the US would be satisfied!
And Barry and Steve could tour all 57 states that Barry previously visited spreading Koolaid to all the ludites!
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jwkpiano1 said 3:26PM on 9-09-2008
What's life like being a jackass troll? Pretty good?
puhsitch said 5:58PM on 9-09-2008
You should totally blog about your unique views on Apple and progressive politics.
mattmoo said 3:05PM on 9-09-2008
Yep, without proper 'i want to press release hard' buttons, this is a big ask as a gaming device. Still i can a gaming controller peripheral isnt to hard to produce and plug in?
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Neil said 3:20PM on 9-09-2008
He didn't call it "one of", he called it "the best" and he's clearly wrong.
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Sam said 3:39PM on 9-09-2008
I'm sorry, but right now the Touch is the Zune of gaming devices.
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brian said 3:49PM on 9-09-2008
No offense, but I can see why he chose not to show off a game that, while good looking, is just yet another Tetris-style puzzle game. You might as well have asked why he didn't show off Koi Pond.
That aside, I can see the possibility for great games on the iPhone/iPod but I can't imagine it'll become a dominant gaming platform. Physical buttons register a lot better than the touchscreen and accurate control is ESSENTIAL in games. The tilt function is nice, but it's almost a gimmick and, as others have opined, not even that great. (Again, accuracy is everything.) It would be a cinch for Nintendo to add this to the DS if they wanted to.
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puhsitch said 6:02PM on 9-09-2008
Totally agree. Aurora Feint doesn't have that "wow" gaming factor. It looks like a very pretty shareware puzzle game.
Although I must say that Rolando looks pretty cool and different...
SubGenius said 4:00PM on 9-09-2008
What you folks are failing to see is that not everyone is a hardcore gamer. For them the iPod touch isn't the best. But for the much, much larger (and largely untapped) casual gaming market, the iPod touch is great.
As far as improvements, the new touch...
has speakers!
volume buttons!
built-in nike+ ipod support!
better headphones!
with microphone!
$70-100 cheaper!!!
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totoro said 4:51PM on 9-09-2008
Wow, Rolando looks pretty cool-a bit like Sony's LittleBigPlanet.
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jufri said 8:40PM on 9-09-2008
Yeah i agreed with some of you about the controls of the Ipod touch/iphone as it was a tad limiting. HOwever my past tense of agree shows that this view has changed. Please dont criticize the apple device yet, its still in its developing stages.Once you guys have tried the new game real soccer 09/real football 09 can you officially judge the controls of the ipod touch/iphone. I was bewildered by the great use of touch and functionality of the controls. A must buy for me.
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jn said 7:53AM on 9-10-2008
Good to see developer support. But shouldn't they also support the Windows Mobile PDA's? I'm pretty sure they are more powerful than iPhones. A certain Windows Mobile device even has a dedicated graphics chip. But the problem with Windows Mobile format is that there are tons of different hardware configs...
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DrWatson said 2:27AM on 9-10-2008
Gaming device? Nay never. As much as I love my iPod touch and enjoy a fun little game every now and then -- even if the iPod's cpu and gpu power were sufficient for games like demoed at the show (which they're not, if you expect decent graphics), the iPod's (or iPhone's) battery is way too weak to make it a reasonable gaming device. Ever seen the battery status dwindle while doing _any_ cpu/gpu-intensive job? However, I don't know how long a ds or psp gets along with one battery load, but I guess they're doing better than the iPod. If not, this doesn't make the iPod a better gaming dvice, It then makes all these device unsuitable ;)
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Taylor said 9:04AM on 9-30-2008
The PSP's battery life is miserable, at something like 3.5 to 4.5 hours.
My MacBook can do better.