Perhaps our iPads aren't as tied to the App Store's selection of games as some of us might have come to believe. Leave it to David Perry, founder of Shiny Entertainment, to change our perception.

In a post on his blog, the Gaikai co-founder revealed a picture of a prototype version of his browser-based streaming service working on an iPad. The game he chose to show off with it? Blizzard Entertainment's ever-popular PC MMO World of Warcraft.

Gaikai proper is a cloud-based browser-binded streaming service. The goal is to move consumers away from installs and having to upgrade their computers with parts. Gaikai's servers hosts the game, and all of its files, and streams them into browsers. This allows users to get the full game experience without hassle.

Gaikai is currently in beta.

Speaking with Eurogamer's Digital Foundry about the image of World of Warcraft running on the new Apple device, Perry revealed that it's running in 1024-by-768. He also revealed other details, and called the picture a "teaser."

"All iPad inputs are streamed through a translation system to the server, so we can re-map anything to anything in real-time. We hide a virtual keyboard off to the side, so you can type as well (like to login). It's just a teaser as the iPad just arrived, once they are done with the video optimization we will show it off."

This isn't the first time we've seen World of Warcraft running on an Apple handheld. Last year we watched a video of the MMO running on an iPhone courtesy of the Vollee client which promises to be able to do what Gaikai will do for PCs, but in our phones instead.

According to Digital Foundry, Gaikai for the iPad is a ground-up, HTML5-designed effort. If Gaikai, as an app, ever progresses beyond this tantalizing prototype stage, it's hard to tell if Apple will clear it as an App Store purchase. We don't need to lick a frog to predict that it'll at least experience some sort of scrutiny.

"I'd prefer to play World of Warcraft on my iPad more than just about any app they (Apple) permit. I'm not sure blocking great stuff is a good strategy," Perry told Pocket Gamer in a recent chat.

"I guess the point is that once we get our player written for iPad, we can run absolutely anything on it that same day."

Until that fateful day, though, we can just drool and wish.

Behemoth studio and creator of the StarCraft RTS series, Blizzard Entertainment, is notorious for its long development cycles. It's an integral part of the studio's "quality first" mindset. But it's also an ethos that is, to some extent, stopping Blizzard from putting SC on the iPad.

Speaking recently to Ars Technica, lead designer of SC 2 Dustin Browder put the breaks on any thoughts that the studio is actively developing for the device: "I don't know," he said, "We're certainly not working on it now."

The reason is wrapped up in control. SC 2 is a PC RTS, and while some devs have been able to have success with their strategy releases on Apple's latest device, Blizzard isn't so sure their game's experience will translate.

"Will we give users the same quality experience?" Browder asked. "We don't put multiple SKUs out there and have like, the good SKU, and the 'Meh, we exploited this SKU, we made some money.' We don't want that SKU, the version that's not the good version."

Would Blizzard make millions if they released an iPad version of SC? It's possible. This is the studio that makes millions on digital animals for their PC MMO World of Warcraft, after all. But for now, Blizzard seems content on doing what it does best: making polished and entertaining PC games.

Since Arnold and Blake foolishly decided to trust the fate of their weekend in the questionably capable hands of Saturday delivery drivers, I'm the first person in the TouchArcade crew to successfully secure an iPad. I'm still waiting for the hundreds of iPad games we've been hoarding since they started showing up on the App Store to sync, but so far my initial impressions of the device are almost exactly what I expected.

The screen is beautiful, browsing the internet on is great, and the included Apple apps (notably the iPad mail client) are especially impressive and will undoubtedly make the iPhone feel cramped in comparison if I get too used to it. The one thing that did take me by surprise is the weight of the device, especially being so use to the feel of my Kindle. But, according to reviews, the battery figures Apple provided apparently are accurate and I'm more than willing to put up with a little extra bulk for a device that can go all day without being plugged in.

I'm likely going to be spending the day powering through as many of the iPad launch lineup as possible, as well as seeing how quickly I can adapt my iPhone video shooting rig to the larger device. I've got my personal list of games I'm the most interested in trying, but (assuming they made appropriate offerings to the gods of Saturday delivery) Arnold and Blake should soon be joining me in the iPad fiesta.

I suppose we can take requests for what you guys would like to see first, so feel free to drop a comment on this story and we'll try to prioritize our initial impressions based on the general consensus. The first game I'm going to be firing up is Mirror's Edge [App Store, quickly followed by Warpgate HD [App Store], and I'm not even sure to go from there.

Also, if you're curious to see any specific iPhone game upscaled on the iPad, we'll likely also be doing a roundup of sorts of iPhone classics running on the iPad or something like that.

If like me you've been wondering what in the world happened to EA's Mirror's Edge following our preview late last year, we just found our answer in this evening's App Store push of new iPad titles.

Mirror's Edge currently holds the title of most expensive iPad game, weighing in at $14.99. It's unclear at this point what if anything has changed from the iPhone version we got a look at. Needless to say, this is going to be one of the first games we download once we all get our iPads on Saturday morning.

As we get closer and closer to iPad zero hour, even more details on the device are hitting the internet. Most interesting from a gaming perspective is a brief hands on with an actual iPad showing several games running on the device that we haven't seen before including a few seconds of Plants vs Zombies for the iPad in this video from ABC News:

PCMag also put up a video review of the iPad which goes over most aspects of the device, but if you skip to about the four minute mark you can see a few brief clips of Real Racing HD:

Other reviews are also coming in from the usual suspects:

• David Pogue @ The New York Times
• Walt Mossberg @ The Wall Street Journal
• Edward Baig @ USA Today
• Andy Ihnatko @ The Chicago Sun Times

And finally, AppShopper shows another huge push of iPad games and apps. We're likely going to spend the rest of the night combing through these and post anything we find that's interesting. Stay tuned!

For the many that surely missed it, on Wednesday Apple quietly announced a new member of the iPhone OS family, the iPad. And, while it runs existing iPhone applications just fine in a pixel-for-pixel or 2x-scaled mode, the device with its 9.7-inch screen has much more to offer in the way of screen real estate (over 5x the pixel count of the iPhone) and both CPU and GPU power. The iPad proposition gives iPhone developers much to ponder in the way of just how best to support it.

James Brown, author of the lovely, zen-like frog manipulation game Anicent Frog [App Store] has, himself, begun to ponder the situation and has shared his thoughts on what he feels makes the most sense in bringing Ancient Frog to the iPad, in a recent blog post.

I can make the current iPhone application recognise the iPad and behave more like a native application on that platform. What I've done here is run it at 768x1024, but allowing it to letterbox slightly to retain the original aspect ratio (luckily the ragged border gives me a neat way to bring the edges in a bit, as well as a bit of room to lose some pixels top and bottom). This already looks way better than the previous shot - lots of elements are still blurry, but things that appear at varying scales in the game are already at a higher resolution. This means the text, the daisy and the particle effects are all crisp, which makes the whole thing seem higher resolution

He goes on to point out that fully supporting the iPad's enhanced resolution in his existing iPhone game would not only require a reworking of the graphics that make up every level, but would also push the game above the 10MB barrier for Edge / 3G download, which would greatly reduce the game's "impulse buy" potential for iPhone users.

Brown's plan is to bring the incremental upgrade that he describes, enhancing the game experience on the iPad in the near term and, down the road, release a separate, larger iPad-only version that takes full advantage of the device, but does not penalize iPhone and iPod touch gamers with a larger install.

For new games, moving forward, building in specific support for the iPad is one thing. But reaching into the back catalog to refresh existing titles for Apple's new device is quite another. Just what degree of iPad support is worth adding? What make the most sense? Once gamers start getting iPads in their hands, the early reaction to the experience of gaming on the device, as well as overall sales levels, should help answer that question. But developers and gamers alike should keep in mind the fact that, when the App Store launched, the iPhone had been on the market for a full year with millions of units sold. When a gamer downloads the first iPad game from the App Store, its market will be starting at zero. As such, it will be some time before developers determine where the "sweet spot" of iPad development effort lies.

App Store Link: Ancient Frog, $4.99

Apple put up their full keynote today which can be streamed online or downloaded through iTunes by subscribing to the Apple events podcast. We clipped out the three games shown during the keynote:

• X Games SnoCross, $4.99
• N.O.V.A. - Near Orbit Vanguard Alliance, $6.99
• Need for Speed Shift, $6.99

SnoCross was demonstrated as an example of a, existing 3D game from the App Store running on the iPad, while both N.O.V.A. and Need for Speed were tweaked to show some iPad-specific functionality utilizing the additional screen real estate available on the larger and higher resolution screen:

Following the keynote, Joystiq got some hands-on time with the device where they played Need for Speed, N.O.V.A. and Scrabble:

Also, if you listened to our recent podcast and want to hear more of what developers think of the iPad, both Joystiq and Boing Boing have great articles worth reading.

With the introduction of the Apple iPad yesterday, many developers seem genuinely excited about the prospect of bringing their games to the large-format device. During our Podcast we discussed that some games would be better suited than others to take advantages of such a large surface area. So here are a few that we think would benefit the most.

Tower Defense

Fieldrunners

Fieldrunners and almost any other Tower Defense game would be able to take unique advantage of the large scale size of the iPad. Right now, most iPhone games require you to zoom in and out or pan across maps to manage towers and track the creeps. Imagine playing with a massively large map with a full overhead view.

Line Drawing

Boom Brigade

Any line-drawing games such as Flight Control and Harbor Master would benefit from a large screen. In fact, both developers have already announced their intentions to make iPad-specific versions. It would also change the game play balance entirely, potentially making for a much more frantic play field. But the one line drawer that we always felt was handicapped by the iPhone's screen size was Boom Brigade. In Boom Brigade you could draw lines to direct your troops into formations to attack the enemies. The problem was that the screen was so small, there wasn't enough space to do much maneuvering. That will change with the iPad.

Board Games

Monopoly

Monopoly and every other board game out there are a perfect match for the iPad. Not only because you can actually see the entire board at once, but also because there's enough room on the device to actually play with other people in your family. Board games have always been social games, but that aspect tends to be lost when you are playing on a 3.5" device. The iPad may be the perfect way to revive these under appreciated games.

Real Time Strategy

Command & Conquer

StarCraft, well, maybe not StarCraft specifically, but aside from Command & Conquer Red Alert there really hasn't been many full-featured RTSs that we've enjoyed because of how difficult cramming all of the different interface elements required to control your units and micromanage your base requires way too much screen space on the iPhone. C&C did it best, and even then it felt like way too much of the screen was wasted on large finger-sized buttons. With the increased area for countless interface elements, the iPad could be the perfect device for realtime strategy games.

If you have your own ideas of what kind of games would be best served by a 9.7" multi-touch display, let us know in the comments.