Thanks to their just-announced upgrade to the iPod touch, Steve Jobs and Apple have really made their priorities clear — they’re out to get the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PSP. Sure, the iPhone and the Touch aren’t made specifically for messing around with games, but they do contain a ton of them, and Apple’s most recent television commercials reflect this fact.
We thus give you 5 great reasons Apple’s platform is going to take over the handheld gaming world.
#5: The App Store is Simply Massive.
Developers have always been selling their games through the normal shops, but by using Apple’s store, it means a lot less overhead is involved, and you can get your games out to the masses really quickly.
It’s the most ideal direct-download system that yet exists, and publishers are flocking to it.
#4: A New List Means the Big Games Are Seen More Often.
Many developers felt their bigger projects were getting lost in the shuffle by not being priced at $0.99, which drove down quality and meant more focus on little, short games. Apple’s new ‘profitable’ list has changed that entire pattern.
This could be huge for the platform as a whole — we might see massive new games.
#3: You’ve Got All the Big Guns on Board.
With two obvious omissions (being Sony and Nintendo), you’ve got nearly every other big company currently doing stuff for Apple’s platform — Rockstar, Sega, and the like. This is only going to keep getting better.
It seems like daily we’ve got a new developer happily announcing an original or a high-profile port to the App store platform, and this is only going to increase in the future.
#2: Innovative Controls Ensure Innovative Games, Too.
Although it doesn’t have a normal pad-and-button style like the other guys, the lack of those things has really forced developers to do brand new stuff. Maybe you’ve seen Flight Control around?
That style of control is entirely unique to the iPhone (the Nintendo DS has some similar games), and nobody knows what incredible innovations that take advantage of the iPhone’s unique setup are in the pipeline.
#1: Big Numbers Mean Big Games.
When a platform reaches critical mass, it’s simply inevitable that quality developers are going to turn to it, realizing that its tools are excellent, its distribution methods require a very small amount of overhead, and the potential for profits is there.
The App store is continuously expanding in size and capacity, just recently hitting 2 billion downloads, and with Apple’s rigorous standards, things are only going to get better.
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