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Posts tagged with "games"

Nintendo Still Doesn’t Get The (New) Mobile Market→

Nintendo Still Doesn’t Get The Mobile Market

Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata, speaking about “quality video games” and mobile platforms like iOS and Android:

In a feisty attack on the fastest-growing sectors of the video-game industry, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said that smartphone games and social-media games focus on quantity instead of quality.

“They are not like gaming consoles, there’s no motivation [for] high-value video games,” Iwata said at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

I’d say this is one of the biggest problems a company like Nintendo is facing right now: trying to compete in the mobile gaming space with a device that’s just meant for gaming, while consumers are demanding something that goes beyond cartridges and games sold at $40 a piece. And so they try to build “social functionalities” into their consoles, hoping that an avatar creation feature or in-console communication would provide a solution to a market that’s deeply changed in the past four years.

Should Nintendo change at its roots and start doing all that consumers want? No. But the way I see it, they should pull their head out of the sand and understand that the rules have changed and it’s time to stop complaining, and start building to stay in the game. Those Angry Birds won’t go away by themselves.

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Firemint Announces Real Racing 2 HD with Enhanced Graphics for iPad 2

Just in time for some truly magical iPad 2 hands-on videos featuring games being played on the new device, developer Firemint has announced that the brand new version of award-winning game Real Racing HD will take advantage of the more powerful graphic capabilities offered by the iPad 2.

Firemint says they were not aware of the detailed specs of the iPad 2, but they had a fairly accurate idea that turned out to be good for what they’ve been building. That means gyroscopic controls, faster graphics, lighter form factor easier on gamers’ hands when holding the device.

Real Racing 2 HD has been significantly enhanced beyond what could work on existing devices, and our efforts have definitely given us a head start on iPad 2.

All these attributes combined with our enhancements to Real Racing 2 HD will create the most precise and intuitive car racing experience on any device. The 1080p HDMI output also opens up some great possibilities.

We can’t wait to see more developers jumping on board with great-looking games built specifically for the iPad 2. March 11 can’t come soon enough.

Unreal Engine 3 To Power Four Gameloft Games In 2011 And 2012

Gameloft has today announced that they have partnered with Epic Games to bring four games to mobile devices using Unreal Engine 3. The game engine will power two games this year and two aimed for release in 2012.

Unreal Engine 3, which was released late last year, was the game engine that powered the tech demo of Epic Citadel as well as Epic Games very succesful Infinity Blade.  The Unreal Development Kit is free for developers to download and try, but if used they must pay a $99 licensing fee and a 25% royalty fee after the first $50,000 in sales.

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Hackers Find A Way to Stream PlayStation 3 Games to iOS Devices

Here’s something you’d probably like to try right away, but likely can’t because it’s really too geeky to understand: a group of hackers and developers known as “pandaelf” managed to stream PlayStation 3 games to the iPhone and iPad on a local network using a series of USB devices attached to the PS3, and an “interpreter” to send iOS gestures back to the console. Somehow, it’s working.

Here’s what they did: they connected a USB mouse and keyboard to the PS3 as input controls, and another “third party capture device” that streams video to a PC running a build of “everyAir”, a remote desktop controller. everyAir really handles everything, from iOS to PC communication to live video streaming from the TV and PS3 to the iPhone and iPad. It’s one hell of a setup but as you can see from the demo video below, it seems to be working.

Video and Q&A below. Somebody please find a way to play Game Cube games on the iPad now, and I’m sold. [via iThinkDifferent] Read more

Joystickers’ Classic Will Put Buttons On Your iOS Device

If you’re a hardcore iOS gamer and you’ve always felt like your iPhone and iPad could use some hardware button love in certain games (*cough*shooters and platforms*cough*), you should take a look at this new Kickstarter project by a Chicago-based startup called Joytstickers, which aims at improving the quality of your gaming by putting physical buttons on the shiny glass surface of your iOS device of choice.

Question is: how? The Classic, a product that’s been in development for 9 months, is a set of buttons that can stick to an iPhone’s screen thanks to a special “micro-suction cup material imported from Japan” that’s invisible to the naked eye but allows the material to stay put on the screen without damaging it or leaving any sign of attachment. As you can see in the promo video, they really just stick. The reason why Joystickers is doing this is to overcome the lack of tactile feedback when playing iOS games. Personally, I can say this sounds extremely good for games like Pizza Boy or shooters that require a “fixed” control position on a glass screen that, admittedly, doesn’t usually make gamers so excited. The only major problem for now is that there’s no solution for directional (D-Pad) controls, meaning that you’ll either have to stick 4 buttons on screen and forget about diagonal input or just use a Classic for non-directional virtual buttons.

The startup is also promoting a brush and a stylus for iOS, but we think The Classic is the most interesting product available on Joystickers’ Kickstarter page. You can back the project here by pledging $1 or more, and it will be funded if $25,000 is pledged by March 24th. [via MobileCrunch] Read more

Gameloft’s VP Talks Premium Games, Maturing iOS Gaming Market And EA’s Sale Tactics

Last week over at Mobile World Congress Gameloft’s vice president Gonzague de Vallois spoke to PocketGamer and had some interesting remarks regarding iOS gaming. One of the things he spoke about was iOS gamers gaining an increasingly high expectation for games on the platform, particularly in regards to graphics and utilizing the full potential of the device.

He says that taste’s of iOS gamers are maturing and are moving on from supporting the small developers who make small, casual games to the games that are more fully featured and more fully use the potential of the device. To me at least, this seems like a bit of an odd comment given the continuing success of games such as Angry Birds and the caliber of indie games that are continuing to come to the App Store such as Rockin’ Rockets.

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Minecraft To Officially Come To iOS This Year

Minecraft

Minecraft

If you’re as addicted to Minecraft as I am, then you’ll be excited to learn that the hit block building title will be arriving to iOS later this year. Gamasutra reports that Markus Persson has revealed to the site that the game won’t be an exact port, but rather will be granted features that “make sense” for touch screen devices.

Minecraft is currently in the beta stages, with a full release planned sometime this year. So far over 1.3 million copies of the game have been purchased, with nearly five million registered accounts on the official site.

Minecraft has been a massive success in indie gaming, and there’s been a lot of interest from the community in an iOS version since the game’s inception. Aron Neiminen, a new recruit to the Mojang team working on Minecraft, will be developing the iOS version that’s to be released at an unannounced date.

[Gamasutra via IndieGames]

iOS Devices Become Kinect Controllers In Dodgeball Game

In the past, we saw several interesting Kinect hacks making their way to iPads and Macs thanks to the efforts of a vivid developer community willing to get more out of Microsoft’s motion-controlling peripheral than simple Xbox pairing and gaming. In fact, we were able to get our hands (and eyes) on a free Kinect 3D viewer available in the Mac App Store and an iPad playing together with OS X in a cool futuristic experiment. But hackers, as usual, don’t stop at curious experiments that are worth nothing but a quick test.

A group of hackers last week managed to build a custom Kinect setup that allows iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) to fire balls in a dodgeball game playable by a gamer in front of Kinect. The UI design isn’t as beautiful and attractive as Microsoft’s version of the same thing built on top of Windows Phone 7, but as you can see from the video below it definitely seems to be working.

The video is available for your viewing pleasure after the break. Who’s going to build a Kinect Angry Birds with iOS devices as controllers now? [via Engadget] Read more

OpenFeint Connect Promises Cross-Platform Integration, But No Simultaneous Play

It looks like mobile gaming OpenFeint has no intention on leaving all the fun to Apple’s Game Center. In fact, OpenFeint has become more than a simple alternative to the Game Center with cross-platform integration (OpenFeint works on Android devices, too) and in-app purchasable content that’s not tied to App Store approval. The service sports 65 million users and it’s about to expand a lot more with the upcoming launch of OpenFeint Connect.

Connect will allow iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, OS X and Windows users to communicate through the OpenFeint platform, share leaderboards and achievements as if everyone was playing the same game on the same device or computer. In fact, Connect could also work with Facebook games and a plethora of other online gaming services. Unfortunately though, simultaneous cross-platform play won’t be possible (guess it’s a little tricky to implement real-time multiplayer on iOS vs. Android).

A private beta of OpenFeint Connect is available here for developers who want to experiment with the API. [via Download Squad]