Gaming on the iPhone/iPod Touch
First introduced to much fanfare in January 2006, the iPhone has swept through the smartphone market, grabbing 30% of the US smartphone market share thus far. With the release of the 3G iPhone in even more countries in July 2008, it now has around 16% of the global smartphone market. Not bad for a phone that was released less than 2 years ago. Then again, it does have that symbolic “i” prefix that captures so many people’s attention. The iPod Touch was released not too long after the first iPhone and has already received an overhaul for a second generation iPod Touch. However, little is usually heard about it, since it’s usually subsumed under the “iPhone” category.
Not long after the iPhone was released, it was advertised as a handheld gaming “console” of sorts with entire advertisements devoted to showing of games on the iPhone. It’s not hard to understand why of course, on paper, the iPhone seems like a dream gaming device. Huge touchscreen, accelerometer, vibrating function, microphone, support for 3D graphics, etc. Being a pretty avid gamer, this was one of the things that attracted me to buying an iPod Touch last year (the iPhone wasn’t available here yet).
Initially, the games were really, really fun without a doubt. Racing games were controlled by tilting the iPod Touch, so many games just seemed so much more fun with the touchscreen, the graphics of some games were pretty good for a handheld device (Texas Hold’em). To top it all of, many of the games boasted an obviously high level of design and quality as a whole. In fact, I used my iPod Touch for games more often than for the iPod functions themselves (music, video, photos, etc) and I thought I’d never get bored with games on my iPod Touch.
Alas, the novelty wore off faster than you can say “Crash Bandicoot”.
After awhile, the idea of tilting your device to control a car on a race track just didn’t seem as exciting as before, you realise how badly the graphics are in some games, and even the novelty of the touchscreen wears off. In the end, you’ll be left wishing you had your PSP or DS in hand. Let’s face it, just because a device has a touchscreen and motion sensor really doesn’t mean much if the device wasn’t a 100% meant for games. Games have to adapt to fit the console and the result might not be pretty. For example, a touchscreen is cool no doubt, but everyone’s just used to playing video games with buttons. The accelerometer is interesting, but after awhile it gets kind of annoying trying to figure out how much you have to tilt the device for each maneuver. The touchscreen is infinitely fun at first, then you realise some games might even be better off with buttons or a cursor.
So really, what’s really driving the iPhone’s market for games is not that the games are good, but rather that they seem fun. Telling a friend that you race by tilting the device will inevitably make his eyes widen and his mouth drool with excitement. Let him play with it for awhile and he’ll pass it back to you eventually of his own accord, eyes not as wide, mouth not as wet.
You’re better off with a PSP or DS at the end of the day.
