If this thing ever sees the light of day, imagine how gaming on the iPhone will continue to evolve and expand: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/cp-designs-iphone-game-pad-prototype-does-donkey-kong-country-r/
Im not sure what kind of sarcasm could be found there, but i changed it up since it bothers you so much. Someone having a bad day? troll.
The iPhone is great as a portable device, but doesn't even scrape the experience you get with a full-blown console game.
it is great, and it surprises me because seeing adverts of it before I bought it I definitely thought it'd be naff as a gaming platform. But where it excels, and where maybe I'd overlooked is that its games are very similar to PC games- where casual games are very revolved around point-click. The advantage the iphone/ipod touch has is it retains this mechanic (except it's touch-click) and adds some extras with swipes, accelerometer, tilting. And tries to replicate a usual console experience with buttons. Sure as any critic will say- replicated controls aren't as good as the real thing, and depth of most of the games isn't really there. But for sheer casualness, different mechanics, and pure numbers of games(especially indie) it is pretty great.
As a PC gamer, I have to say something about this, since PC games are nothing like 'casual games very revolved around point-click'. Just sayin'.
The problem is, those experiences are overshooting the needs of the majority of the gaming market and becoming too expensive to develop. Wii showed that MS and Sony had really gotten it all wrong, you really couldn't sell 150 million devices with technological superiority. The latest developments with Move and Kinect are the results of juggernauts pulling U-turns. App Store is showing Sony, Nintendo and MS many things about consumer behavior. Many of the lessons are painful and it may be extremely difficult to duplicate a similar model without also copying its downsides (for example, the downward spiral of pricing and lack of proper market for high price point content). It remains to be seen if they can successfully do that before another player disrupts the entire market. Personally I expect a new Apple TV, Google TV or similar set-top box to seriously undermine the future of dedicated game consoles. For a huge portion of consumers a device with Wii-level of performance at HD resolution meets the needs of all computer entertainment, and that's probably what the upcoming ~100 USD set-top-boxes can offer. When the games for that device cost the same as the offerings on the App Store then Wii, PS3 Move and Kinect are going to struggle dearly trying to attract casual gamers with much more closed hardware and content which, while still having higher production values, is trying to justify its quality with a 20X higher price. This, in good and bad, will leave to a market where the division between core gamers and casual gamers becomes even more pronounced. For a casual gamer, if there's a set-top-box capable of HD gaming at a cost of ~100 USD with hundreds of thousands of games, almost all at <3USD prices, it's unlikely that the same person will find a dedicated game console appealing. If this really happens, then it's obvious that the current model of manufacturer absorbing the cost of expensive hardware will no longer fly for the next generation of devices. You can see parts of this understanding in the hushed comments from Sony and MS in the tone of "Kinect is the new Xbox360" and "we have a ten-year-plan". It's impossible for either player to bring in a new uber-console, because the expected market for that starts diminishing from 150 million (back in PS2 days) to 25-50 million. In other words, it's unlikely that the core gaming audience can remain a sustainable market for the level of content that they demand. At the same time, casual audiences will probably expand greatly. It is possible that a set-top-box capable of games starts being a preferred companion of new televisions, with its network access and built-in stores for both media and games. Sony and MS are definitely trying to bring their devices to this direction as well, it looks like an interesting race to see who will take over the internet-connected living rooms. So yeah, iPhone (and more specifically, iOS) is an awesome gaming platform. Awesome, terrifying and disrupting. The next ten years will be very, very interesting.
I find I'm more likely to play a full game on my iDevice as with my PS3, there is always someone who wants to use the TV or computer at the same time as you! So for me, iDevice gets more play time - also, they rapid increase in games DAILY and so CHEAP means I can get more enjoyment out of many games
I'm primarily a pc gamer too- all I'm pointing out is the key function of the mouse. And casual games I'm meaning are the typical ones people play in their lunch hour at work.
There are tons of games on my ipod that I have spent at least 10 hours (or more) on - The Quest, Zenonia, Across Age, Tiger Woods, Wolfenstein, Rayman2, Spider, Babylonian Twins, Sword of Fargoal, GTA: Chinatown Wars, etc. - I'd say that is a very healthy library of serious games on the platform.
I really love my new iPhone, but I don't think it's a better gaming experience. It's good for specific uses (I'm a mom, so it's a great way to keep my daughter busy while we are waiting in line somewhere), but you just can't get the same depth to the experience. Now iPad could be a whole different story... but alas, I don't have an iPad (yet!)
