Will the iPhone Revolutionize Portable Gaming?

[CadCrazy]

Some of us paid close attention to Apple when they announced the iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) and enterprise features of the upcoming 2.0 firmware. Ignoring the enterprise features for now, here's a summary of what's going on with iPhone development.

• Download the SDK for free, today.
• Develop on any Mac (sorry, Windows developers) and run under emulation. Hook up your iPhone to test on that and run profiling and debugging stuff.
• When you're ready to publish, you have to be a part of the developer network, which costs $100.
• The developer sets the price, and it goes on the iTunes store and a special on-phone application store. You get 70%, Apple gets 30%. If your app is free, there's no distribution charge.

That's a very generous distribution model. All software will come from the same unified software library, which can be accessed from the device itself. The model actually looks a lot like Xbox Live Arcade and the XNA Creators Club stuff: very low barrier to entry, distribution to everyone with the device, and a pretty generous revenue percentage (you should see how bad the percentages are on many casual game portals and other similar distribution services).
Sega's on board, so is Electronics Arts. Lots of other smaller game developers, we're told, are developing for the iPhone, like Freeverse. John Carmack, the industry luminary and coding guru from id Software, had this to say about the SDK announcement on Slashdot:

We have put in our application like everyone else, so I don't have any inside information at this point. I think Steve is still pissed at me over some negative comments I made about iPod development tools a while ago. Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good--a simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds, and a 70% royalty deal for apps over iTunes is quite good. The iTunes distribution channel is really a more important aspect than a lot of people understand. The ability to distribute larger applications than the over-the-air limits and effectively market your title with more than a dozen character deck name, combined with the reasonable income split make this look like a very interesting market. This type of developer/customer interaction is probably the wave of the future for mobile devices, it will be interesting to see how quickly the other players can react. Based on our experiences with the carriers, I am betting not very quickly.

I personally can think of six reasons why the iPhone may revolutionize portable gaming, or at least the cell phone gaming market


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[naveen_reloaded]

PSP + Sony ericsson is only goiing to revolutionize poratble gaming....

[CadCrazy]

Soon this is going to be changed. Although ifans don't like games

[desiibond]

^^^LOL. iphone and game revolution? It may revolutionalize how we can play games like scrabble and mario. Game revolution can be done only by three companies. MS, Sony and Nintendo. No one else can even come near.

[naveen_reloaded]

Originally Posted by CadCrazy

Soon this is going to be changed. Although ifans don't like games

LOL....

many think it revolutinized phone world... but it didnt .. now in gaming ??? no way....

[amitava82]

you gotta be kidding me...

[PCWORM]

Originally Posted by naveen_reloaded

PSP + Sony ericsson is only goiing to revolutionize poratble gaming....

+1.....
and even if Iphone steps into the mobile-gaming arena, sony will again pwn it
with PSP2..!!!

[naveen_reloaded]

^^^^ agree pcworm...

and soon SE is about to beat nokia...

but i wish nokia nd se merge or join force to bring out better phones... that would be a great dominating factor in the owrld of mobile...

[Zeeshan Quireshi]

lolz PSP has been there for a looooong time . What are these mac guys thinking ?

[PCWORM]

Originally Posted by naveen_reloaded

^^^^ agree pcworm...

and soon SE is about to beat nokia...

but i wish nokia nd se merge or join force to bring out better phones... that would be a great dominating factor in the owrld of mobile...

Yea,,,,SE is close to beating Nokia....and Xperia will proove it!
A merger will b gud,,, but i want SE to excel on their own....!

[naveen_reloaded]

me too.... ^^^^

xperia will beat...

but its a long in that diretion to go .. since there are many big guns out there ...like black berry, o2 eetc.... we have to wait and seee...

[napster007]

in my wildest dreams maybe...

[desiibond]

If you guys are not aware, It is Samsung that is making lot of inroads into the mobile phone market. They are now global no.2 in terms of market share.

Nokia and Samsung combined have 54% of market share.

1) Nokia 39.20 %
2) Samsung 14.90 %
3) Motorola 13.10 %
4) Sony Ericsson 9.10 %
5) LG 7.70%

btw, apple got 0.4% market share. Considering that it has just one model in smartphone segment and only availble in less than 10 countries, this is pretty good share.

[PCWORM]

Apple introduced the iphone with sum gr8 features, and at the end of the day,,,the sales were backed bcoz of hype...so it was quite obvious to get that much market share with a single phone....take an example of games like HALO3 which only sell more bcoz of immense hype and expectations!

[MetalheadGautham]

sony PSP and nintendo DS already did revolunise portable gaming.
there are actually tournaments for some game called Pokemon Perl in DS, which are played on the console via WiFi online.
PSP has ensured that portable gaming has become affordable for all thanks to ability to play ISOs of games.

hatz off to both.

[SunnyChahal]

Apple and gaming???huh!!what a joke
I didnt buy a mac and got this PC just for gaming coz i know that the sh1tty 7600 GT or ATI 2600 pro would die running newer games.Moreover,MAC OSX doesnt support gaming for it is based UNIX.

[PCWORM]

Originally Posted by desiibond

If you guys are not aware, It is Samsung that is making lot of inroads into the mobile phone market. They are now global no.2 in terms of market share.

Nokia and Samsung combined have 54% of market share.

1) Nokia 39.20 %
2) Samsung 14.90 %
3) Motorola 13.10 %
4) Sony Ericsson 9.10 %
5) LG 7.70%

Source please...

[ring_wraith]

for gaming.

Any Mobile<iPhone<<<<<<PSP.

[desiibond]

Originally Posted by PCWORM

Source please...

http://www.slashphone.com/70/8923.html
http://www.mobilemonday.net/news/shares
http://www.edn.com/article/CA6494415.html
http://forum2.mobile-review.com/showthread.php?t=69829

[krazzy]

ROFL! Nokia has 30% more market share than SE, and you guys are saying SE will beat Nokia! Yeah maybe in year 2020. Or maybe much sooner, maybe tonight, when you sleep, you'll have a dream where SE has beaten Nokia. Ha Ha.

Coming back on topic, I think iPhone can never beat PSP in terms of gameplay. It might appeal to casual gamers who don't want to carry along their phones and their PSP everywhere. Its biggest disadvantage is the lack of physical buttons. I can't imagine playing without them. No amount of motion sensors and can replace the feel of good old fashioned buttons.

[Hustlerr]

Atleast iPhone can run Spore ( Yes Spore) in near future. Go check out the vid

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/31660.html

[PCWORM]

@Krazyfrog...
yes we made unbiased predictions of SE overtaking nokia which can be considered as dreams according 2 u....but this dosent mean SE wouldnt be able to overtake nokia anyway...take examples of the INTEL and AMD war..or the xbox360 and ps3 war! ppl often speculated that ps3 wouldnt be able to outsell xbox anyday, but the situation changed just at the start of this year with PS3 recording max market shares....!

[dreamcatcher]

arre..SE overtaking nokia is too far fetched..the console wars started about a year back....look at the xbox and ps2 now...xbox doesnt come near the ps2 in terms of sales..

sony was merged to ericsson in the year 2001..and nokia has been dominating the market frm time infinity...mayb in a couple of year SE..with its present marketing strategy will beat samsung..but no way is it go9ng to come anywhere near nokia in many years to come...unless...

SE+MOTO..

[krazzy]

Neither Intel nor PS3 were too far behind their rivals. Hence for them overtaking wasn't that difficult. But if you compare SE and Nokia's market share, you have to be a complete lunatic to even assume that SE will come close to Nokia's market share, leave alone surpass it. Heck its not even close to that of Samsung's. At the rate at which they're growing, Samsung just might surpass Nokia in the next two years, considering Nokia has absolute crap handsets in its line-up then (which is very unlikely), but SE, no chance. Sorry to burst your bubble mate, but it just ain't happening.

[naveen_reloaded]

krzy ... let me give u a eg...

when i joined my college ... SE: noikia ratio among my friends were like 1:20 or even more...
now after 4 years... now it has come to nearly 1:4-5

wht would u say ???

even i see the change thru out all parts of my state...

my friends who didnt have a phone bought first phone as SE ... simply coz they think and its the best phone for the price...
i am not saying nokia is going down or some thing like tha...

wht i am saying is SE is rapidly EATING nokia`s fare share of market...

and that too in a mere time period of say 4-5 years...

[PCWORM]

@amd-man
yarr i kno it is not very easy 4 SE to beat nokia, but it is also not impossible...we can predict it 2 happen in long term..

[dreamcatcher]

@krazy-ARE U OUT OF UR MIND?????? :O

if u think that samsung can beat nokia in terms of sales...let me tell u..if u look at the sales in the 4th quarter of 2007 SE beat samsung hands down..and now with SE in a collaboration with several north american providers..its more likely tht by 2010 SE wil overtake samsung...with the x1 and the much rumoured psp phone to come next...SE is the next big thing..Nokia's share may go down to a certain xtent..but it will still be leaders for years to come...
the competition is more between SE and samsung now...which the former shall win comprehensively

@pcworm-i never said its impossible..SE can surely beat nokia..but the difference as of now is too high...more than 30%..will take more than 7 years..mayb less if SE comes up with the bravia and psp handsets...

I wuld love to get hold of a WALKMAN+CYBERSHOT+BRAVIA+PSP all-in-one set..

[PCWORM]

Hey...i didnt knew about the rumours of a psp phone!..that wud b so great!!..althouh ive been hearing a lot about PSP2.

[goobimama]

FYI, one needs an Intel mac to use the SDK. Just thought I should add that. Carry on

[desiibond]

Originally Posted by naveen_reloaded

krzy ... let me give u a eg...

when i joined my college ... SE: noikia ratio among my friends were like 1:20 or even more...
now after 4 years... now it has come to nearly 1:4-5

wht would u say ???

even i see the change thru out all parts of my state...

my friends who didnt have a phone bought first phone as SE ... simply coz they think and its the best phone for the price...
i am not saying nokia is going down or some thing like tha...

wht i am saying is SE is rapidly EATING nokia`s fare share of market...

and that too in a mere time period of say 4-5 years...

FYI, For Asia, India has 6.4% of share in terms of mobile phone sales.

Nokia has a very strong hold in Asia and Europe. Sony Ericsson cannot even touch Nokia in Europe. That strong Nokia is in there and also in South East Asia.

To be more specific: people prefer Nokia N-series over SE's high end phones. People prefer Nokia's E series over SE's business class phones (SE has less that 5 models for business class).

Nokia has more number of models that come for less than $50.

Only area where SE has strong hold is Music phones and Camera phones.

Nokia now have strong contenders in XpressMusic series and in N-Series to thrash SE's phones.

I am pretty sure they will soon release series of phones that compete with SE's cybershot series.


Nokia has 19 models that cost less than 5k.
Sony Ericsson has 10 models that cost less than 5k.

Nokia has 17 models that cost between 5k and 10k
SE has 10 models that cost between 5k and 10k

Nokia has 16 models between 10k and 15k
SE has 11 models between 10k and 15k

Nokia has 6 models between 15k and 20k
SE has 7 models between 15k and 20k

NOkia has 7 models above 20k
SE has 2 models above 20k.



You see, it's the range of products that mkae the difference. Nokia has 2x number of models below 10k. And we all know that this is the segment where majority of phones are sold.