However, the Wii sales are dropping exponentially. In fact, Nintendo is finally starting to post losses over profits. Does that mean, they've hit a saturation point? If you look at the lineup for the Wii, Nintendo is realizing a need to cater to the hardcore market, that they had all but catered to. The XBox 360 and PS3 are now picking up steam. Especially, the XBox 360. They have been selling the most consoles, month after month since the release of the slim version. Kinect is just an added dimension toward a new segment of buyers for an XBox 360. The highest selling games ever are now for the Call of duty series, which is a gamer/hardcore franschise. Which to me, dictates, when you cater to your market with a refined and polished title, even with incremental differences year over year...the results speak for themselves. Apple, specifically is targeting the handheld gaming space. Radically so, as evidenced by Steve Jobs trumpeting iOS vs. Sony and Nintendo, during the September keynote. Apple wants into the hardcore gamer space, even showcasing Epic Games' offering in their tv adverts. I think, this will be the beginning of Apples blue ocean strategy and entry into the gaming market. iOS will always foster casual experiences. I do think a shift toward gamer titles and experiences are coming sooner, rather than later. It would be foolish to think otherwise. The AppStore doodle jumps and Angry Birds have been popular and always will be... Yet, the Novas, Modern Combats, Aralons and Infinity Blades will become equally as popular, gaining enough traction to flip the AppStore dynamic toward those types of experiences. It's inertia, the object in motion remains in motion. It's also the evolution of the platform.
what is indie friendly? fancy gfx are never indie friendly, they are tons of work.. tons of works means tons of ressources.. tons of ressources means tons of money.. so how is this "indie friendly!" ? the unreal3 engine is just of interest for high profile developers who have the time and energy to put the u3 engine to use.. and using the ut3 engine doesnt mean games will start to look better on their own.. its all about art.. the engine itself is pretty unimportant since she just renders the crap you made... so if you made an ugly 3d models.. the unreal engine won't turn it into the holy grail.. no.. again why does it mean to use the unreal engine that the game will look better? it does not.. there are tons of games out there who look like shit and use the unreal engine, so what? and no one knows what the unreal engine is.. the big crowd doesnt care abot the engine.. they don't even care about the developer.. all they see is the publisher and its that way for eternity and it won't change since its usualy the publisher who spends the big money on advertisiting etc. well no.. there is no saturation anytime soon.. the iphone sells ata dramatically rate always topping the previous quarter .. so there is more than enough fresh blood there to buy what the platform offers mostly.. and thats casual games.. if you think this will change anytime soon you'd see soon you've ben mistaken. i don't get it what has a engine todo anything with the games for ios.. are you really that naive to think unreal engine = great game = great sucess? no, why should it.. everyone wants cheaper cheaper.. so where should the money come from for huge projects? we will see how infinitie blade will work out this year.. we'll see how high it will be prices and i hope it will be very high priced.. the higher the better. again you see the mobile devices as a gaming platform.. but they are mor versatile than that.. first of all it will be a phone! then mp3, webbrowsing, gaming, ebbok reader etc. so not its not compareable to classic consoles like the wii, where pretty much all you can do with it is playing.. losses over profit? what are you talking about? http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-10-28-nintendo-wii-and-ds-sales-down the have a loss of 2billions from their former 2 quarters.. from 69.5 to 67.5, whoo whoo dramatic losses.. nintendo will be bankrupt soons.. where do you get your "knowledge" from.. its pretts normal that the sales of hardware declines along the way.. nintendo hadn't a regular price drop of their console like ms and sony did.. it was stable all the way over the last years.. so its normal that you get a saturation of some sort.. then you have the lifecycle end of the ninteo ds and its successor knocking on the doors.. so its more than normal that the sales of the old devices break in if the new devices was announced and will be released soon. no.. they can push the price 50$ lower and see a new rush of customers.. lol yeah.. right.. the most successfull console in history sees the urge they made something wrong and need to cater to the core market.. errmm.. there is really nothing i can add to that.. because .. ahh whatever.. oh my.. the wii is a casual console and thats the reason it sells so much.. and thats the reason sony and ms are coming now out with their motion control.. but all thoose will fail.. like everything failed that is not a standard peripherial that comes with EVERY! console.. wrong.. the mario series sold alot more than the call of duty series.. so what now? everyone in the boat to make marioesque games? wrong again.. your incremental version is what ea did year after year with thir sports series.. and they all pretty much fell flat.. how many of thoose incremental sports game are there anymore.. not much.. it was cut down alot since the customer and some point spoke with their vallet and didnt buy the same crap again.. wow you know alot about what apple wants.. you've must be haveing regular breakfast with steve.. if you would watch over the border the wishes you! personaly have for the ios platform you'd see that apple is not in general interesting into gaming.. they are interested to dip their fingers in all that is entertainment.. music, video, games etc. and this was not planed as the history of the idevices show.. the developers actualy made the platform to a mobile gaming device it currently is.. lol its funny because apple actualy does nothing.. epic ported to the ios, id ported to ios and not apple.. at the end you think the iphone will get buttons so hardcore fighting games can be controller better instead of the on screen crap of most games? you can wait a long time for that. equally propular.. i highly doubt that.. its only the low price casual market that can keep up in the charts for long.. look at rhe glorious rage.. its already descending from the top position.. why is that? its surely not because its expensive.. no.. its because its not casual.. after the first rush of the core gamer the sales dwindle.. yes the sales of rage may be enough to recoup the investment but thats usualy something only high profile developer can achieve.. would you buy a 10$ game from a new unknown developer? probably not.. you rather stick to what you know.. like id and epic
Sure. Because there are so many more Wii consoles than PS3 or X360, Nintendo is running out of people to sell them to. That doesn't mean their approach hasn't been more successful than Sony or Microsoft---obviously it has. It just means most people who want a Wii already have one, and so they need to come up with something new. It still doesn't need Unreal 3. The market has pretty clearly shown that most people who buy and play console games don't care all that much about graphics quality. Of course, there will always be some who do, and they are an important market too, because they may be a minority of the population but they are willing to spend more per capita on games. I don't understand exactly what this means, but if you're suggesting that Apple will encourage or even allow iOS and the App Store to emphasize more "hardcore" games that are only of interest to a small but intense community of gamers, over their broader pool of customers, then I think you're completely nuts. Apple gets its revenue from the devices, remember. Selling fewer devices to the hardcore gamers who then buy lots of games is not good for Apple. Increasing the cost of their device significantly, to improve 3D graphics performance for the small percentage of dedicated gamers who really care about high-quality immersive graphics, is totally not in their interest.
I am not going to touch on every point you made. I will say this: I had been a Nintendo fan my entire life. I was in love with the Gamecube, yet, saddened by it's lack of mainstream attention in comparison to the ps2 and XBox. I followed the idea of the Wii, when it was called the Nintendo revolution. Yamauchi was out, Iwata was in. Nintendo was changing course. I camped out to preorder a Wii, attaining a receiver and picking it up on launch. I was excited and thrilled. That love affair with Nintendo soon ended. I desired more from a console. I wanted experiences with depth. I didn't want shovel ware. I wanted Mass Effect and Oblivion. I moved into Microsofts camp with the XBox 360. I love it. It has fulfilled what the Wii couldn't. I own a Kinect. It is the real deal. I got one in launch weekend and it is no slouch. It really does work. I also find it more thrilling than I found a Wii, comparatively. The Kinect sold over 1 million, within it's first 10 days of sale. I believe Kinect will succeed, whereas you believe it will fail. Try it, in the right set up and become a believer. To each their own.
well i don't think kinect will last, at least not in its current form.. 10 million units sold doesnt mean much.. its just a peripheral (and a quite expensive one) with only crap games avaiable at the time.. its new so people buy it.. but i would assume the sales will drop fast next year after the holidays and it will be just another gadget collecting dust the peripheral is nothing without software.. and thats where the biggest problem is.. ms has yet to beat nintendos wii sport (resort) in quality.. and i actualy find it interesting that you want more core content but buy yourself an absolute casual gamer peripheral.. you bought shovelware.. why? you said you don't want to..? core gamer don't want to jump around like idiots in front of their tv.. they want to see 3d volumetric blood in killzone 3, halo 10 and call of beauty 14 and what does 1.3 million units means worldwide? it means nothing.. its a nice start but thats it.. sony is close by with their move stuff and they spend alot less into advertising.. at the and so what? the new call of beauty: black pants sold nearly 3 million units on day one ... so what? i don't see your point might be because you don't make one..? well we nicely derailed a discussion about universal apps and are talking about being stupid in front of the tv.
laughter Sorry I couldnt respond but I was consumed with laughter . This has to be some the funniest comments made . 1) Nintendo realizes it needs hardcore games ? LOL , I am sorry thats too funny. So Super Mario Bros needs a gun ? Ok here you go !!!
serious Ok look this unreal engine nonsense going on is to selll unreal engine units to developers. I have played some " hardcore" games on my device . A few I liked but overall some where rather annoying like resident evil . Look Splinter Cell and prince of persia where both 99 cents , did they become popular and best sellers ?? No , because most iphone gamers dont want that type of game. Most hardcore gamers are here , so thats where your mind got mislead. Look you made an honest mistake , you look at the home page and page after page of unreal on toucharcade . It doesnt make sense to me why either , but rest assured thats not what most iphone buyers want. Big companies will always be front page news , but people like lima sky and rovio mobile will always rule.
well they are not selling the engine anymore you can use it for free till you earn money with it then they take a share off that. and resident evil on the ios was not the real deal it was the heavily downsized mobile version they ported.. pretty crappy experience if you know the real one. well thats not true.. it always depends what success means.. means success making 100k ? means success making 500k? a million? where does success start? pretty much all gameloft games are selling good and have a quite solid income, so yes hardcore games are played.. but then you'd compete wieh EA, Gameloft etc. [/QUOTE] Look you made an honest mistake , you look at the home page and page after page of unreal on toucharcade . It doesnt make sense to me why either , but rest assured thats not what most iphone buyers want. Big companies will always be front page news , but people like lima sky and rovio mobile will always rule.[/QUOTE] well its alsways perspecitve... all the news about the unreal engine on ios was because its is a technical leap forward by at least 2 or 3 generations from what we are currently seeing in ios games.. but that doesn't mean next friday after the unreal engine release there will be thousands of awesome unreal powered games out there.. at the end the engine is not as important as the one who actualy create the content in the first place.. a game can look great with unity and crap with unreal..
light Ok maybe my explaination wasnt clear enough , so let me make it clearer. If a developer sees Sega,unreal,gameloft,capcom, and then unreal engine again , of course he will assume that ios is moving into that direction . Thats human nature !! What would you expect him to assume ? Now I been in the game industry for a while in windows mobile. I can tell you what I made in a year there , I made with my 1st game here and my game has onlly been out for a month. If developers see big companies being covered very heavy , and indies not being covered as much what would you expect them to say. Of course I know better because I been making mobile games for a while. But any new developer will make the same assumptions that he made.
Hehe you mean momo is rolling in cash? Well the rankings say different but maybee earning a dollar is more than earning nothing. And i think indies are pretty much covered. Most interesting indie games get their spotlight, they rise up the charts mae some money and leave again. Like most "successfull" apps do. At the end you have to offer quality, which most apps do not have, so they are not getting much sunshine. So since this is a derailed thread anyway, lets sit on the wreckage and talk universal again, the rest got pretty much pointless.
There are only two valid reasons I can think of for a developer NOT to support the entire iPlatform. The primary one being hardware limitations (eg. your app needs a camera, or OpenGL ES 2, etc.) The other is financial (eg. you literally don't have enough cash to pay a developer, and he won't do the work for a percentage.) Other than that, you are either: lazy, greedy, don't care enough about your work, or some combination of the three.
Being a lazy, greedy (not to mention careless) developer I am happy in the knowledge that as long as I develop software for an 320X480 device it will work just fine on a retina display or iPad as well. Meaning: Most developers do support the entire iOS platform, even when we don't try to...
There is also another reason, which is a major one, that all customers seem to be unaware of. If the app does not fit under 20MB, which is the ATT per app download limit on the iPhone, then that creates a huge problem for the dev. A major chunk of app sales are from impulse buys on the go via the 3G network. For non-big name apps, simply bumping yourself over the 20MB mark will cut your iPhone sales in half at the very least. Yes, some very visible apps can get away with being over 20MB, but for those of us in the trenches, every sale matters. I know if my iPhone sales were suddenly cut in half, I'd go out of business pretty quickly. So, unless a dev is ready to spend time and money on setting up a download service for customers to acquire the extra resources for the iPad portion, and continue to spend time and money on supporting said download service forever, the options are pretty much make it universal and watch your iPhone sales plummet, or make a separate iPad version. Yes, some devs, especially the larger outfits, are trying to double dip. They are also charging you 5x the price because that's what the iPad market supports. They do it because they can. And they do it because that is their job: to make the most profit possible on existing IP. But there are a ton of us out there that are being lumped into the same category, and taking just as much heat, simply because we cannot afford to make a new or existing app universal. Some of us work very hard to make iPad versions of our apps that are different enough from the iPhone versions to justify the double dip, or even a price increase. Some don't. Don't blindly blame us all. Examine the featured differences between the versions, as well as the file size, before slinging blame. Still don't understand the reasoning for a particular app's non-universal decision? Email them, and ask. Buying the iPad version because you feel forced to, and then leaving a one star protest review accomplishes nothing, unless your intent is to look like a spoiled brat to every adult who reads your review. If you feel the app isn't worth the price, talk with your money: Don't buy it. If an app doesn't sell, the price goes down, or they reconsider their decisions. If an app sells a million copies, yet has 25% of the reviews saying the devs are greedy, I promise you the devs are not concerned in the slightest. Given the number of sold copies, they've correctly priced their app for the market.
How about if the cost of development exceeds the extra revenue it would bring in? I think that's the most common case, it falls under your "financial" category but it is qualitatively different from the examples you mention.
See that one is up to the developer, and is reflective of his nature: do I risk a few extra bucks and complete my project, or ship it as is, unfinished (slightly) and not as good/far-reaching as it could be. My guess is that the small incremental cost will be offset by the extra sales from people who would otherwise pass due to lack of support for their device. Oh and by the way, if anyone needs some extra help, I'll do the work for you for no charge up front, only 5 points on your gross!
But the developer is in a better place to make that "guess" than you are. If you don't understand why people don't do something, and your "guess" is that they would make a profit if they did, then one very plausible explanation is that your guess is wrong and they know it.
No not really. I have the perspective of both a developer and a rabid technology fan. So I have made observations, experimented and gained experiential knowledge over a period of say 25 years. A given developer on a given project is not only severly influenced by subjectivity but also by a myriad of other factors, not to mention not necessarily being as experienced. I am speaking from the position of a priveledged consumer-- that is to say I can develop your app too, so I can balance the potential work against the potential reward based on market behavior. I cant see it coming out any otter way than profitable*. *Assuming your product is any good, you weren't short-sighted in the graphics department, and you aren't intending a radically different variant for each platform. Like I said above, I'll take your game, add support for correct resolutions for the three platforms and smooth out any odd inconsistencies. I'll do it for free because it's an insignificant amount of work. Relative to anything else you have to do, including design your icon, properly supporting all the iSiblings is less work.
Let's break this down: - assuming your product is any good That's fairly irrelevant on the App Store. Good stuff fails all the time, and bad stuff succeeds as well. - short-sighted in the graphics department Not every app had the benefit of being created in a world where the iPad was even a rumor. Most apps from 2008-2009 were created for the small screen, because that's all there was at the time. - you aren't intending a radically different variant for each platform Have you read the UI requirements for the iPad? They are significantly different than what is required for the iPhone. iPhone was all about limited info on the screen, and lots of flipping windows to present secondary information. iPad is all about staying on the main screen at all times, showing secondary information via splits, popovers, etc. For many an app, that can be a significant change in code and artwork, just to minimally satisfy the basic Apple requirements. Yeah, given your statement above, where the app must have high res art already in existence, and be such a simple app in presentation that it sits in the crossover between iPad and iPhone design requirements without violating either of them, then sure, not much work at all. But that's a pretty narrow segment of the app population.
The world is full of people with experiential knowledge who are blinded by their ignorance of what they don't know.
