richardgaywood wrote:
I have a pilfered Macbook on my desk
Nice!
romanista wrote:
Ah, did want to talk about this article, and now it is in this topic, so lets discuss.
It's funny how many people didn't get what I meant with that piece (not you, obv.). There have been a lot of people going "this guy doesn't know what he's talking about—of course iPod touch gaming will be successful", but I wasn't debating that. Of course lots of games will be made and sold—Apple's distribution model is excellent, and even beats that of the PSP and NDS, because you can update stuff. (As I said, I'm sure every owner of The Settlers for DS would love to be able to do that.)
Where Apple's making stupid statements is in the actual range of its device. It will
never become a major gaming platform like the DS or PSP, unless Apple makes some very major changes. The main one for me is the controls—although I've heard people say the RF one is OK, I think it's dreadful. Virtual controls are just nasty, and having to cover half the display with your thumbs is just insane, as is having to 'check' to see whether your thumbs are in the right place every now and again. I never have to do that with any other games system.
Unfortunately, the iPhone, like everything else from Apple, is basically down to What Jobs Wants™. He likes glossy screens, so that's what the iMac gets. The colour saturation is wonderful, but it makes them literally useless in many environments. Similarly, he likes the way the iPhone is and dislikes gaming, and so we don't get any standard controls. Frankly, Apple could clean up if it released an inexpensive clip-on controller (like that Belkin rumour), but it'll never do it.
As for sales predictions, they're done for for two reasons—uptake in Japan has been
way lower than forecast, and the Western economy is going to hammer smartphone sales and contract sales, unless it's something you need rather than want. Apple might do OK with the PAYG iPhone in the UK (which was available from Monday), but I can't see the company shifting as many as it had once hoped.