By the end of the year, I think that the iPhone will be considered a credible gaming platform, much the same as the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Granted, it's lack of actual buttons may never make it quite as well suited for gaming as the others mentioned, it will still very much be a competitor. Will it be enough to kill off say, the PSP? The folks over at Popular Mechanics seem to think so.
They referenced their experiences at the E3 gaming expo in a recent article discussing the impending death of the PSP. They had a chance to play the upcoming game Spore on an iPod Touch (obviously it will be on the iPhone as well), and were amazed at not only the graphics, but how enjoyable the game was to play. They noted that while the game has been announced for mobile phones, the iPhone and iPod Touch and Nintendo DS, the PSP was strangely absent from the list. They go on to mention the high price of PSP games in comparison to that of the average iPhone game as more reasons why Sony's handheld is on the way out.
Don't get me wrong, I don't actually think the iPhone is going to kill off the PSP. I'm currently playing Crysis Core on my PSP, and there is simply no way that it could ever be smoothly played on an iPhone due to the lack of buttons. The article is still a good read, and gives you a little food for thought.
[via PopularMechanics]
if they can get some really good games on the iphone THEN it would possibly
Couldn’t some clever people develop a controller of some sort that snaps onto the bottom of an iPhone (like the old Griffin iTunes thing that let you play radio out of your iPod) through the dock connector and give real, hard buttons? It wouldn’t take much to get things really working well.
If I’m not mistaken, I’ve already seen pictures somewhere online where some enterprising developer has already developed a physical multi-button controller unit designed specifically for the iPhone where the iPhone slips inside it – adding physical buttons on each end of the iPhone unit. Once the iPhone has been placed inside, you can play iPhone games using the controller buttons exactly the same way you would on a PSP. If the lack of physical buttons is your only complaint, then that has already been achieved and solved. Therefore, unless you can come up some other reason, then I feel it is only just a matter of time until the iPhone completely rules the mobile games market, and the PSP becomes history.
Yeah I saw it too, it’s called the iControlPad.
http://www.icontrolpad.com/
Hey, how about Apple let us have a bluetooth stack to make a wireless game controller for the iPhone. I have a PSP at it’s pretty bad a** so I’m not sure if the iPhone could beat that, but cheaper games would be nice.
I agree with Rhett cheaper games would be nice. I also have one and unless they come out with god of war and games like that it could never beat the PSP.
There is a petition at http://www.iphonefeatures.org to get Apple to include basic features such as ‘copy and paste’ and more bluetooth profiles in the next iPhone software release. Please sign it!
The Icontrolpad (if it’s legit) will certainly be one hell of a hit, assuming video games are then made where’s it useful, all that Nintendo and Sega rom crap aside