Apparently so, but we have yet to see games which prove it. Even if it is more powerful than the PSP, it could take some time for developers to make use of the extra power to make some really nice games.
plus theres no standard external controller yet and there is only so much you can do with a touchscreen and an accelerometer.
I completely agree. Although no matter how well I feel developers have implemented the touch screen I still feel like somewhere inside my heart cry's to click some physical buttons. I think for Apple to really consider beating the PSP in terms of gaming popularity they need to get serious and make a separate iPhone or iPod touch gaming edition with some decent physical controls. Otherwise I hope some decent gaming peripherals will start popping up that address this!
Yeah, it seems like a tricky situation for Apple. Let's evaluate their options: 1. Keep on going with no additional gaming controls and touch/accelerometer apps and let developers/companies make different controllers, and have different apps that use different controlls (aka, a big, retarded mess. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't let this happen) 2. Encourage gaming companies to make a universal type controller with the same buttons and would be used on all apps (i.e - console controllers which are all basically the same, but just have different colours/brand names). 3. Come out with an official Apple controller (the best, but most unlikely IMO). 4. Come out with a new device that features controls which could be used with certain apps (bad choice, unless additional controllers are availabe for old devices). 5. Do absolutely nothing, except sit on their backsides eating pie all day (most likely ) So maybe if Apple got their act together and either made their own controller, or set the standards for a universal type controller which other companies could follow, then maybe sometime gaming on the idevice could get a whole lot better.
I hear from developers that the 3GS is almost as powerful as a PS3 and is capable of handling graphics on par with PS3. Don't flame me for that though, just read it somewhere.
Nicely summed up. The obvious choice for Apple would be to create a universal set of controller standards and an API for developers to use. However knowing Apple they will probably surprise us and do something completely unimaginable instead. It doesn't appear that Apple seem very bothered about the gaming market at the moment but It's hard to believe giving the massive growth of gaming that Apple aren't doing something massive behind our backs.
Yeeaaah, I have a hard time believing that. First of all, the GPUs and CPUs are pretty different, considering we're comparing a mobile device to a dedicated gaming console. This is more of an argument spiffyone would be staging, but we're comparing two totally different things. And while the 3GS is maybe, just maybe able to emulate the graphics, to make a really cool virtual environment with all those effect implemented... let's just say the phone would get hot enough to burn through a slab of lead.
I don't know how I'd feel about the physical buttons thing. Must all the game apps be updated for such physical buttons? What about the apps we use that aren't games, hmm? Honestly, I don't really care for physical buttons that much, as long as the digital buttons are responsive (which they are in every game I have with them). I personally love the no external buttons, touch screen, and accelerometer. It's stuff that other gaming devices don't have. It's cool, easy to use, and as I said before, native. It's better than having buttons that make it harder to carry around inside your pocket, and MUCH better than plugging a 360 sized controller into the port and trying to play the game like that. I guess they could make a controller that you could plug the iTouch into like one of those Apple radios, but there goes landscape mode.
By that same token, there's only so much you can do without a multitouch screen and an accelerometer.
#5 is most likely. Not because it's "lazy", but because, y'know...they aren't competing with Nintendo and Sony per se. As Kamazar pointed out in his post, my argument, and one based on the facts of the industry, is that Apple is squarely in the mobile platform market. Now, this mobile platform just happens to be viable for games, but that does not make it a game system (that is, a device solely dedicated or primarily dedicated to gaming) nor does it make it competition in the portable game system market. Why? Again, it's a mobile platform, not a portable game system. Apple, tbqh, is more concerned about other mobile platforms as that's with whom they are in direct competition. These platforms include nGage, BREW, Android, Palm, and Windows Mobile (which would include, possibly, the upcoming ZuneHD, which, knowing MS, will run a variant of Mobile as can be read up on here: Ballmer: Zune on Windows Mobile (and probably vice versa)). If you don't think that that's correct, don't take my word for it and instead look to Apple's own last conference. They put up a chart or two directly comparing app sales of iPhone/Touch compared to Android, etc. They've never, to my knowledge, come out and state "yep, we're in the game business, and Nintendo and Sony better watch out!". Instead, they've stated "Apps, including games, sell best on the iPhone platform [which includes iPod touch -spiffy] compared to other mobile platforms like Google's Android, etc.". So Apple doesn't really see the need, or even need to, implement physical controls for games because, as big a seller as games are, they are not bought by the majority of iPhone/Touch owners. A sizable, very large chunk of the consumer base buys games...but most don't. That's the little fact that people overlook when they start directly comparing this platform with DS and PSP. The latter two have a captive audience, a targeted audience for game software. This platform has a sizable audience for games...but it ain't the only audience, and in fact represents but a fraction of the total userbase. That's the difference between a portable game system (dedicated game platform) and a mobile platform (not dedicated to any one type of software). It's different markets because the focus of the products are different and more importantly so too is that of the consumer bases.
