Hardware is not the limiting factor in any way to the production values of iPhone games. Only the AppStore economy limits the scope of the titles.
Have game with a ps1 quality it's possible and there are some title they can run on a ps1 without see a big difference with the other game. Ps2 games for now it isn't possible. And the limit is the hardware because the structure of the iphone the only one bus shared with cpu and gpu it limit a lot of things. The other things make a "ps2 game" for iphone for the kind of market on the app store can be really dangerous for the developer who risk to lose a lot of money on develpment.
Both. No publisher wants to de-value their core IP by selling it at $0.99, and since the market has voted with their wallets to keep the prices down, there's very little motivation with any publisher to see if a $20+ game would somehow be a great success when all indicators currently point to the opposite.
This may be where the big names could be useful for the whole market. Let them break the ice. The question is will they?
Hopefully Rockstar will try that with Chinatown Wars. If they launch that game at <$10 then it's unlikely that the "AAA" titles on this platform will ever be anything other than PSP or DS ports.
Yes and no. PS2 doesn't have shaders, but its raw performance at drawing polygons on screen (i.e. fill-rate) is much, much greater.
I know it's possible. I was looking at my old ace combat 4 game. It's on the ps2 and I don't see a lot of difference between that and the iphone ace combat. Graphics are comparable. Mainly length is what's different. It appears that the chief constraint is economics.
I think you are correct. It appears (and Frand, a top notch developer agrees) that the economics of the store are the reason we are not seeing epic $30 and up games. But the question that nags me, and maybe I need a new thread, is why? Why are the economics so different than the ds and psp? I gave my attempt at an explanation by saying that it is mental and emotional. But for those in the know, are there other reasons? I am not an economics guru. If the hardware is capable, why not risk it? Will no one risk it? What are these companies afraid of? I guess maybe this all shows that the big lumbering software companies are too big to take risks. They are too big to innovate. The company that I work for is similar. We are afraid of risk because we are old and big. But I keep saying, change or die!! Some large software house must, must, must take the risk. C'mon EA! Give us an epic FPS made exclusively for the iphone. But who am I kidding, it is all about the money...
We see that the iPhone gaming scene has got games comparable to the 5th generation (N64, PSX, etc.) or later in terms of graphics, sound and gameplay. However, one aspect that is generally missing is the content. Take the case of Gangstar for example. It had decent graphics (best of its genre on iPhone), decent soundtrack, cool gameplay. However, the lack of depth (no incentives for exploration and same boring shooting missions) and a small storyline were the spoliers. So, I feel, the problem can be taken care of using DLC (which is gradually becoming the de facto standard for extending the content) or by increasing the price. At the same time, I have a bad feeling that we will never get console-like content on the iPhone. I have seen that instead of providing a 30-hr game, developers are splitting them into 2 15-hr games, so that they can earn more profit. If they sold the whole thing for $10 or more, hardly anyone would buy. But each being worth $5 brings a lot of customers (at least they can buy one only). Case in point: Glyder. The two installments released in a space of 8 months and could easily be merged to get a bigger experience. I have nothing against Glu or Glyder and I absolutely love the titles. But in this case, I feel, ONE game was split into two. Another one is Rolando (I know I'll be flamed for this). They followed a similar model earlier (later Rolando 2 became free).
When the AppStore launched, the price point for branded content was established by Sega with Super Monkey Ball ($10). Some months after the initial gold rush, the market got crowded and developers who were desperate to make back some of the investment noticed that the only way to do that was to drop the price. And in those months, it was a second wave of the gold rush since the customers were not expecting to get such a good price for value. Note, Steam is going through this similar gold rush now, with games going on sale and seeing huge profits. On the flipside, PC gamers are also now learning to wait for sales. The only reason DS and PSP games are still selling at higher price point is because of retail legacy. If the migration to digital distribution happens in a larger scale in the coming years, you're likely to see a similar trend of content value inflation. (Note the pricing of Mass Effect, Dead Space etc. when you're buying them in XBLA, $20 each.) Altogether, it's a huge concern that the AppStore pricing model is disrupting the games industry in a fundamental way which may bite everyone in the ass a few years from now. When all content is available online, the pattern of over-saturation seen on the AppStore will repeat in other channels as well, but hopefully the price brackets will be managed better so it's not a race down to $1. In any case, publishers with huge portfolios are going to see good returns on their old games (look at Nintendo), but the motivation to invest into a new AAA title will be much reduced when the audience has been conditioned to wait for price drops like the iPhone market. One way to look at it is that publishers are competing against their old portfolios. Similar to how people have had limited interest in upgrading from Windows XP, why would you buy a new AAA title at $40 online if you can get 4-8 games that you missed earlier for the same total cost from the same marketplace? Only brands have protected the pricepoint of bigger publishers, but brands already compete on XBLA, PSN and Steam. Digital downloads are also creating a huge problem of backward compatibility. Sony was able to get away with removal of PS2 content on PS3, and partial motivation for this must have been the realization that PS3 content would have competed with an ocean of older games. Will Apple, MS or Sony be able to ever start with a clean table with a new device again when content purchases are not tied to devices but instead to user accounts? I doubt it. Sorry for the long rant, but in summary, don't expect epic games from major publishers that are not ports from PSP and DS. In fact, be very worried for the future of AAA titles in general - they may become an endangered species in a few years.
Wow. That was really helpful. I feel like I have a whole new insight into the games market. Thanks Frand. And it all does make sense. There really is a whole new economy in the video games world. And as a consumer I have been loving it (but now I am a little scared). Cheaper games, games from past systems that I can discover afresh. But maybe this shake up is good. I feel like real innovation has slowed down in the last few years. I mean look at Call of Duty. Great game (people tell me), but it is all just a refinement of the FPS. Where do we go from here? There are only so many FPS variations. Maybe devs like secret exit are the next wave. Maybe gaming (hello Wii) will continue to be more and more interactive. Think about it. But the question is how do we get games that are content rich (think 30+ hours) and interactive. I would buy it! Imagine the possibilities. Zen Bound as a part of some massive story where you interact with objects in that way to progress through the story. That would be awesome, simply awesome.
Frand makes a lot of sense. This creativity drain imho started in the later years of the ps2. Many of the titles seemed like uninspired garbage. It's mainly why I never upgraded to any later systems. This happened around the time the ps1 came out as well. Remember N64, not many good titles( in the initial release year). This has been a cyclical thing in the past. Hopefully that's what is going on here. Either way, I suspect we have to wait. There is another component to this. A lot of people are suggesting ports of games like FF7. I got curious and started to play it again. That is a long game. I'm not sure if people will really want to stare at the tiny iphone/ipod screen for the +100 hours they will need to complete a game of this size. I'm sure this is also a factor when companies determine the structure of their products.
