Apple Chats Up Gamers on iPhone

Since Apple’s iPhone SDK Press Conference on March 6th, the potential to transform the iPhone into a respectable gaming machine has been greater than ever. Apple demoed their personally developed space shooter, Touch Fighter, alongside Sega’s Super Monkey Ball demo and EA’s Spore variant—each of which took only two weeks to develop, per Apple-enforced restrictions. The former showcased the touch screen’s gaming capabilities, while the latter two mostly utilized the iPhone’s accelerometer to guide Ai-Ai or a custom spore throughout their new iPhone world.

While these mechanics are old hat to anyone who’s held a DS, Wiimote, or PS3 controller, this new coalition of giants is nothing to scoff at. The conference placed an emphasis on ease of use for everyone involved, whether developer, player, or marketing guru (inclusion in the app store has a flat 30% of revenue fee, with no marketing, hosting, or other costs). Sega of America’s Associate Producer Ethan Einhorn commented on the fluidity of play, saying “It’s such a comfortable, smooth way to play the game, that even if you’ve never played a video game before, you’ll know exactly what to do when you pick up an iPhone…This feels like it was always the way Super Monkey Ball was meant to be played.” Development is apparently also a cinch, with the SDK downloadable on Apple’s website and membership in the dev program (which includes distribution of your created apps) costing a reasonable $99.

And for those players who don’t fit into the developer or totally new gamer categories, the emphasis on console-quality/style games is enticing. Einhorn continued on that “I’m a console producer, and this team, they’re a group of console developers. So, for us, by far the most exciting thing was that we’ve been able to create on the iPhone the type of game that we’re used to making. This is not a cell phone game. This is a full console game. And if anything, we underestimated what the machine was capable of doing from the start.”

All of these aspects—console-quality games and their supporters, now-familiar mechanics, and straightforward development—combine into a potential for more daring and inventive iPhone technologies. Developers at BOXfab are working on a virtual reality add-on for the iPhone which turns it into a “virtual headset” capable of networking with others for a multiplayer VR world. Details are limited and the reaction to such a creation has been skeptical at best. Of course, ‘virtual reality’ as an entertainment has had a tough time of it, with the Virtual Boy’s flop and features in campy films such as Demolition Man. If it is to become more successful, retrying on the iPhone during its gaming revolution may be a sharp move: Apple and iPhone users love having every facet of technology right at their fingertips (literally). They may be the ones to give virtual reality another chance, especially with their minds now set on games. And having a base product which can sell one million in two months, despite its $500 price tag, doesn’t hurt either. With King Midas-Jobs’ hands upon gaming, VR may get some sparkly castoff.