Apple appears to be getting even more serious about gaming on the iPhone and iPod Touch. We've long known that Apple has been positioning the iPod Touch as a gaming device, and Steve Jobs even acknowledged to the New York Times the success of this initiative:"Originally, we weren't exactly sure how to market the Touch. Was it an iPhone without the phone? Was it a pocket computer? What happened was, what customers told us was, they started to see it as a game machine," he said. "We started to market it that way, and it just took off." In the past couple of weeks, Apple held a "game day" for select media in which they demonstrated some high profile upcoming games, including Star Wars Trench Run and SGN's Skies of Glory. The platform has already attracted some high profile developers including id Software's John Carmack who believes it could be a serious threat to Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP. "I think mid- to long-term it's a significant threat," he says. "I don't carry a DS or a PSP around, but I've got my iPhone everywhere. So if it plays good games, I'm less likely to pick one of the others up. ... I think the stars could align and it could start to eclipse those other systems in terms of unit sales." In fact, id Software is so positive about the iPhone platform, they are winding down their development of BREW/Java mobile games for other mobile phones in favor of focusing on the App Store. id Software recently ported Doom to the iPhone and has plans on bringing the entire Quake franchise as well as an original Rage-based game to the App Store. Apple is now recruiting (via AppleInsider) for a game developer with "3-4 years of video game development experience" who has shipped at least one high profile title. Apple did ship one game (Texas Hold'em) for the original App Store launch but has yet not released any other games under their own brand. Apple has also recently hired Graeme Devine a notable game developer who was also the lead designer for Halo Wars. While the purpose of these hires is unclear, it seems Apple is starting to take gaming very seriously. Hot NEWS!
I'm excited to what apple comes up with. Will it be some obscenely badass game that is above what we could imagine? Or maybe they just want to make a few arcade-style games to get their foot in the door again. It would be 100% profit for them to release some thing else. Minus developement costs of course. I guess only time will tell... But I doubt we'll see any shooters from them, I don't think apple would want to be labled as the Nazi zombie killers for example.
One gamedevelopper to make an entire game ? As Apple has very high quality standards for their demos, I'm not sure it's to develop. I feel it's more for a consulting purpose, in order to make the next dev toolkit and hardware tech specs even more gaming friendly (a need that would greatly fit with actual development of iTablet). They're searching for a "gamedevelopper that has 3+ years of xp, and contributed to more than one game success". Who would better fit to that consulting role ? Apple has always been very dev friendly, with tons of good advices and useful functions. Plus, if they want to attract people on their tablet, they will have to attract content developers first. Hiring an elite dev consultant would be a damn smart move.
