As Apple prepares to release a software development kit that will give programmers greater flexibility in creating applications for the iPhone, some are wondering whether this might be the company's first step into the handheld videogame market.
Apple has thus far been content to dip a toe in the gaming waters, not counting the company's 1996 gaming console, the Pippin. But the touchscreen functionality of the iPhone, coupled with iTunes' ability to deliver games on demand, has some industry watchers saying that a full-on Apple entrance into gaming might not be far away.
"Even if they don't come out with their own dedicated device, the ability to play more advanced games on the iPhone is a natural way for them to enter the market," says Roger Ehrenberg of Information Arbitrage.
No convergence device has ever been able to break Nintendo's 20-year monopoly on the handheld-games business. But iPhone's touchscreen and built-in accelerometer means it could capitalize on the same control revolution that has caused Nintendo DS to be an unprecedented success, selling more than 65 million units worldwide since its launch in 2004. Although these interface features are currently inaccessible to game developers, the iPhone SDK is widely expected to enable programmers to use the multitouch and orientation-sensing aspects of the iPhone interface in order to create their own games.
Using iTunes as a delivery platform would mean that Apple could sell the games for $5, not $35 -- a trend Apple already seems to be embracing on the iPod platform. Apple has courted big-name developers to release 30 games for the iPod classic, including Tetris, Ms. Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog.
At this point, "it's a matter of simply turning up the volume," Ehrenberg says.
"If Apple hires some rock-star developers who are able to develop some games that work with the existing [user interface] on the iPhone, that could be a good way to stick a toe in the water," he says.
Indeed, Apple has already started down that path, too. Apple convinced Harmonix, creators of Guitar Hero, to develop a music game for iPod called Phase that automatically turns any song on a user's iPod into a playable game level.
That's something Nintendo DS can't do. And iPhone has other advantages: It can register more than one touch point, which the DS can't. Add in the fact that iPhone features a motion-sensing accelerometer, and it's like a Wii and a DS all in one.
But if the iPhone and iPod Touch are going to be serious contenders for gamers' attention, they'll need a screen upgrade, in more ways than one. Ehrenberg says gamers will want a higher-res display: "Right now, the screens generally don't have the clarity to get the most out of the videogame programming that exists today."
And the touchscreen itself will probably need to be a lot tougher if it's going to stand up to the hours of repetitive stress that hardcore games will demand.
Whether or not iPhone gets a gaming-centric redesign, the release of the SDK makes it all but certain that we'll see some touchscreen games from the development community.
Ehrenberg sees iPhone games as a sort of warm-up for a dedicated gaming system to come later: "This could be a launching point to get people thinking: Apple, games, Apple, games. A device may well follow from that that's more tailored to the gaming experience."
Is the world ready for iGame? Who knows. But iPhone could represent the threat to Nintendo's dominance of the market in a way that devices like Sony's PSP utterly failed to.
"It's hard to imagine," Ehrenberg says, "but it was also hard to imagine the breakaway success of the iPhone."
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