'Best gaming device on the market' iPod Touch?
Steve Jobs made a rather large sweeping statement, when he declared the iPod Touch as the "Best gaming device on the market". Now of course the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is what about the PSP and DS, and how on earth could the iPhone ever compare to those two?
Instead of just saying Steve Jobs doesn't know what he's talking about, lets entertain the idea that the iPod Touch could possibly be the best gaming device on the market.
Lets try to list pros/cons of gaming on the iPod Touch/iPhone vs PSP/DS, I'll kick things off with my biggest gripe about PSP/DS.
Pro, digital distribution of games, no more carrying around stacks of PSP UMDs or DS cartridges, or having to pick and choose which games you really want to bring with you, or even having to constantly switch UMD/cartridges anytime you switch games.
So how about it, is there any strand of truth in Steve's words or is he full of it?
Instead of just saying Steve Jobs doesn't know what he's talking about, lets entertain the idea that the iPod Touch could possibly be the best gaming device on the market.
Lets try to list pros/cons of gaming on the iPod Touch/iPhone vs PSP/DS, I'll kick things off with my biggest gripe about PSP/DS.
Pro, digital distribution of games, no more carrying around stacks of PSP UMDs or DS cartridges, or having to pick and choose which games you really want to bring with you, or even having to constantly switch UMD/cartridges anytime you switch games.
So how about it, is there any strand of truth in Steve's words or is he full of it?
Comments
I never carry around my PSP. It's huge!
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/08...3000_lcd_pics/
Maybe Apple should ask them how they improved that.
The UMD tray is noisy and quite slow to load games. SD or in-memory apps are much better for mobile gaming.
The DS graphics aren't good at all. A lot of the games are 2D side-scrollers that look like they came from the SNES. I'm not a fan of gaming with a stylus either and the screens are extremely small so you can't really use it as a mobile internet device or a movie viewer.
The iphone has potential but it too has a number of flaws. It doesn't take external media so your gaming options are limited to downloads. PSP games are about 1GB in size - Apple could probably get away with 512MB or so for similar quality wrt textures etc but it's still a hefty download and uses up a fair amount of the internal storage.
The controls on the ipod are even more limited because there are so few games where the accelerometer is actually usable. Using overlay controls means your fingers block what you see (this is an issue with the emulators).
I think it has the best development environment for games but that doesn't translate to it being the best gaming platform until the games are actually available.
Overall, the PSP will be the best for bringing a console experience to mobile gaming, the DS is for people who prefer lighter/older gaming (girls, old people etc), the iphone is kind of a gimmicky gaming experience for people who have the best all-round device with gaming on the side.
The iphone has the potential to be a great gaming platform but then so does OS X and we all know what gaming is like there. When it comes to games, Apple are all talk and no delivery.
The iphone has potential but it too has a number of flaws. It doesn't take external media so your gaming options are limited to downloads. PSP games are about 1GB in size - Apple could probably get away with 512MB or so for similar quality wrt textures etc but it's still a hefty download and uses up a fair amount of the internal storage.
Perhaps somebody who has a little expertise on the issue could help me out, but I had a feeling the depending on the sophistication of the development libraries and software development tools on a platform the size/foot print of the games can be much smaller with the same appearance and functionality. Perhaps the iTouch/iPhone platform is able to do a lot more stuff with a lot less code than the PSP? Then again graphics and sound files and also be a huge component to make up games. The difference between a single raw TIFF image on a unsophisticated system and a compressed JPEG can be megs in size.
Does anybody know how good the iTouch/iPhone SDK is at creating small footprint software?
having a gaming device with you with no extra space lost (assuming you'd have carried an iPod/iPhone anyway)
best hardware potential for strategy, adventure genres
cons:
bad controls for the vast majority of games
no games
no gamers
For iPod, games continue to be a small value add. I have no doubt Apple is on Sony's and Nintendo's radar now for what they might do in the future, but I don't expect the current PSP or the DS to even feel the effects.
I disagree that the DS is only good for "light" gamers. It offers a lot of unique content and gameplay, which doesn't matter to the occasional gamer (since everything is new and novel to them) but is of interest to experienced gamers. I was close to buying it myself. Tried Ouendan on a friend's DS and had insane fun. Then there's Trauma Center, the various adventure games and adventure hybrids, etc. In comparison, I have never seriously considered a PSP. There are some individual games that have caught my eye, like Patapon and Metal Gear Acid, but that's about it.
Pocket-size graphics will always suck on poly counts. If that's what you care about, none of the devices will do. IMO real wins on the pocket consoles come from being able to take more risks with content and gameplay than on a multi-million, play-it-safe console/PC title.
Perhaps somebody who has a little expertise on the issue could help me out, but I had a feeling the depending on the sophistication of the development libraries and software development tools on a platform the size/foot print of the games can be much smaller with the same appearance and functionality. Perhaps the iTouch/iPhone platform is able to do a lot more stuff with a lot less code than the PSP? Then again graphics and sound files and also be a huge component to make up games. The difference between a single raw TIFF image on a unsophisticated system and a compressed JPEG can be megs in size.
Does anybody know how good the iTouch/iPhone SDK is at creating small footprint software?
It's like you say, the media files are what takes up the space. The PSP even has a smaller screen (480 x 272) vs the iphone (480 x 320) so the PSP could get away with less as it's showing 15% fewer pixels. The difference there is negligible though so the media files would probably be the same for both.
The DS is only 256 x 192, which is close to 1/3 of the PSP screen so they can downscale textures and overall scenes quite a bit. They have to really as the DS only has a fill rate of 30 million pixels/sec compared to the PSP's 664 million/sec. The iphone can do about 300 million/sec max I think.
PSP can do more complex scenes (33 million polys/sec - about the same as a PS2), iphone (3.7 million), DS (120k <- this is why the DS games are mainly 2D side scrollers).
The libraries on the iphone won't help that much even with compression like AAC, MP4 for cutscenes as games developers often use proprietary compressions that are designed to get as much detail as possible. It also helps protect their intellectual property as you can't rip out the audio files/textures from a game.
Given that HD files from itunes are about 1GB, 512MB for a game download isn't all that bad and you'd probably only have 2-4 at a time. Itunes could store it and transfer it when you needed. PSone games on the PSP store were about 350MB. They weren't that good quality but still fun to play. It all depends on the game itself. Games with cartoon textures and simple geometry like Super Monkey Ball are only 35MB on the iphone. The PSP version is 145MB.
Sometimes developers put additional elements in some versions and not others like bonus levels, movie clips, 'making of' features and so on. If Apple cut the games to a bare minimum the I'm sure they could save space. I can't usually be bothered with bonus items anyway - they're like DVD extras.
best hardware potential for strategy, adventure genres
I agree. I would love to see a return to some point-and-click games. Even these look a bit awkward at times though because some things change when you hover like Monkey Island:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV0DJDokn-k
but those are older games and not designed for touch so it would simply need you to move to where you wanted and then tap a second finger to click it. They would also last longer on battery as the screen isn't drawing so much at a time. Compared to the likes of Burnout where your redraws have to be very quick. That's one of my favorite games so I'd like to see it get to the iphone. It's certainly capable of this quality:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhj5aIVkDCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw7jiXtR-0c
I reckon the touch controls would get a bit annoying though as it requires quite good timing. It still make the experience a bit better as you'd feel like you were steering the car.
I started a thread about the iPod touch being considered the best gaming device on the market. I was totally amazed by the amount of excellent responses listing both pros/cons of iPhone/iPod touch gaming compared to Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP.
The discussion revolved mainly around controls, many pointed out because the iPod touch had no real gamepad it could never really compete with DS/PSP, while on the other side, some of you made great counter arguments that the iPod touch's controls had potential.
I was reading an article called iPhone Gaming: Play to your Strengths the other day and it really got me thinking about what kind of game genres would work best on the iPhone/iPod touch and which ones would just be horrible.
So lets talk about this, what games do you think would naturally be at home on the iPhone/iPod touch and what game genres would be a disaster?
I'll kick things off, Flight Sims would be awesome on the iPhone/iPod touch, StarSmasher although it's really basic, is proof of concept that flight sims do work well with accelerometer based controls.
Flight sims are no good - you need too many inputs and too much finesse. Arcade flight shoot'em ups, which you were probably thinking of, can work. Something where you steer and, maybe, shoot. TIE Fighter (named in the linked article) already has too complicated controls to work right, and it is still very arcade'ish.
The author names the RTS genre as a candidate. That's barking up the wrong tree. Current RTS games have some of the very hardest input requirements among all games. A slow RTT game can be done. Anything resembling traditional RTS will fail.
I have mixed feelings about adding physical gamepad support to the iPhone, mainly b/c not everyone will have one, and not everyone will want one, lots of people buy the iPhone for anything but gaming.
It'll also make the lives of gaming developers tougher, designing a game for an unknown gamepad can be tricky, each gamepad may have a different button configuration or number of buttons might differ, major headache if you ask me, from a games design standpoint.
It's also extra bulk you have to carry around, if they ever do start selling gamepad addon controls. One of the biggest strengths of iPhone gaming is the fact that it's so convenient, the iPhone is so compact, it's thinner than both the PSP/DS and smaller overall than the PSP.
The DS tries too hard to be unique. I also feel the lineup of games this year has been rather horrible. I used to get only Nintendo consoles, because Nintendo games themselves were amazing. The third party titles, not so much. Problem is, both have kind of given up this generation, at least, for the "Casual" crowd.
PSP, on the other hand, is a pretty good media machine for me. Game console? For emulating old games, I suppose. As for new ones, only a handful of titles could perhaps be considered good. Kind of the same problem has Nintendo IMO.
As for iTouch... well, there's no real input, is there? Accelometer... Touch Controls... that might be good for a few games, but it's awkward in many others, and the lack of buttons hurts. It's the same problem as the DS, only larger. Hardware, the iTouch shows it can be very impressive, but the memory limits really hurt. As for all games being downloadable, it's both positive and negative. As stated, memory problems, but no need to carry many games around.
In the end, I hope apple doesn't forget the main purpose of iPods, and that's the music. I don't think they have yet, and it's nice to see the iPods have these extra features. But once you start that slippery slope, it's very, very difficult to get out. And when you're going against companies like Nintendo and Sony, you better mean business.
The best gaming platform is the one which has the most developers and the best games.
In my personal opinion, it is the DS which wins here.