All of this waiting...

lol, looks like no gameloft games being released today!(or tomorrow!) it wud be in nz app store by now! more friggin waiting!

 

You are more on track with the screen ratio issue, but it depends a lot on the type of game. In some cases you can just re-use the retina graphics on iPad and adjust the positions of some elements and POOF, you have an iPad version. There is no built-in way to reuse the @2x graphics though, so you have to work up a system for that yourself.

With graphics on iPhone, you work with a 320x480 "unit" space, even if you are using retina graphics at 640x960. This makes the code very easy, because iOS does all the coordinate doubling for you internally

On iPad, all coordinates in the game need to be adjusted too. If you are using UIView as the framework, this is not trivial and you must write your own code to manage the two cases. It is not as hard on OpenGL though, since you can reuse your 2x scaling code.

Once you've dealt with scale, you still have to worry about offsets of UI and game elements on the screen since the iPad screen is larger than 640x960.

If you didn't plan for these things from the beginning (e.g., if your game was developed before anyone ever even heard of the iPad), then they can be a huge pain to add in after.

UI element sizes can also be an issue. Some buttons might be unnecessarily large on the iPad, and you may need additional art assets in those cases.

Also, positioning is sometimes not good if you do a straight algorithmic scale up. Buttons that were perfectly positioned on an iPhone are now out of reach on the iPad due to the size of the black border on the iPad. You may have seen some DPad games that are not playable now because the DPad is too big on an iPad.

In other cases you may want to present things in a different way since you have so much additional space. This requires additional art, additional programming, and testing.

Unless you are doing something really intense like Rage or Infinity Blade, the extra RAM is probably not an issue.

 

The answer to most of the questions and points raised in the OP can be answered with one word. Hype. I mean come on, this thread is the perfect example, would it exist if every developer came out and gave all the information regarding a game on day one.


I am actually opposed to the view that we need more information prior to a game's release, I strive for less. When I was young all you had to go on was fleeting previews in magazines and that was enough. The first big game the Internet ruined for me was GTA: Vice City. It came out first in the US and by the time I had gotten my hands on it, I had read the story and checked out the cars and helicopters so much it just felt stale, like a graphical rehaul of GTA3, all the while my friends are exuberant over the best game ever because each little quirk was a huge surprise and bonus.

Aralon looks good yeah, but the release I'm looking forward to the most this holiday season is Secret of Mana, it's my favourite game, and it's being placed on my new favourite platform. I'm really excited, and all we've had to go on, is a frankly insubstantial teaser trailer and then some weird 4 minute video of some Japanese iPhone gaming site with a hands on. Instead of angering me, or making me bitch and moan about how SE doesn't care about their fans, I'm actually enjoying the anticipation.

Yeah sure if you said, "Do you want it now?" I would say, "Of course!" but I can inderstand that time and preparation must go into making something great. You have to remember it isn't always your expectations that game developers must satisfy, but their own as well,