The iPhone is surprisingly turning into a game platform of sorts with big name publishers such as SEGA and EA rushing to develop games for it. It’s definitely risky business given the history of gaming on mobile phones but it looks like the iPhone could be the silver lining in the cloud.

Recently SEGA of America president Simon Jeffery had an interview with Kotaku where he confirmed that indeed the iPhone is just as powerful as their Dreamcast system. Even though the Dreamcast is an outdated system comparing the iPhone to the Dreamcast is saying a lot when you look at other phones on the market.

Other phones on the market have difficulty handling simple games like the original Prince of Persia available on the Commodore 64. According to Jeffery SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone has been received well by the public which only gives them more reason to bring more titles to the iPhone.

Jeffery didn’t admit it but teased Sonic maybe coming to the iPhone sometime in the future as well. According to Business Week other publishers such as EA have heavily invested in the iPhone game development with titles such as Spore, Tiger Woods and Need for Speed.

According to IGN another title EA revealed via studio id Software was Wolfenstein  for the handset. 

It’s all dandy seeing big publishers focusing more on the moblie handset market but many should be cautious when it comes to games and cell phones. The N-Gage is a glaring reminder why this market is difficult to crack. Albeit, much of the N-Gage’s problem stemmed from poor controls and lack of games.

The iPhone games mainly controlled via touchscreen is till risky business even with the success of the DS. Pretty much all of the DS games use a combination of the buttons and controls along with the touchscreen, but the iPhone games would use touchscreen primarily which could provide poor control schemes.

Also there is the problem of mobile phones being considered as a fashion item and not many people keep the same phone for over two years. Unlike game platforms such as the PSP and DS which remain constant the mobile arena is the most volatile and fickle market there is.

If I were some of these studios I would look very closely at Google’s Android platform which will become standard on most big manufacturer’s phones such as Samsung, LG, Nokia, Sony Erricson and Motorola in the future.

Related:

John Cormack compares Apple iPhone to PS2 & Xbox - Game on way

Steve Jobs: 60 million downloads from Apple iPhone App Store

Apple iPhone competing with Sony PSP, Nintendo DS

Apple job listing points to faster, more powerful iPhone, touch

iPhone dominates its market

Entry was posted on Sunday, July 20th, 2008 at 2:41 am under Games, News, Opinion, iPhone.  Print This Post

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