Sure, you have your flashy new iPhone 3G with its copy of Super Monkey Ball, but what about your other consoles? Don’t they deserve some love from Apple’s super, duper cell phone? Apparently someone else agrees.
Nintendo may catch lots of flack for bringing gaming to the casual market, but their methods have certainly not fallen on death ears. While the DS was far from the first touch-screen device, it was one of the first mass-market commercial ones. It has since been followed up by Apple’s iPhone and a slew of other touch phones. Now, Microsoft is getting in on the party.
Microsoft recently previewed some of the tech for their Windows 7 OS (one can hardly wait for Windows X OS) and the big hoopla seemed to be over the addition of multi-touch capability. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s essentially the same tech in the iPhone. Not only that, many of the demos shown (rotating and resizing photos, zooming in on maps) are ripped directly from the iPhone’s interface. So, great, Microsoft rips off Apple again, right? What does it have to do with gaming? Plenty.
Johnny Lee is a nerd’s nerd. He wasn’t simply satisfied with owning the hard to find Wii. No, Mr. Lee wanted to make a cool little gaming system even cooler. And he succeeded. That’s a nerd’s nerd.
Specifically, Mr. Lee is behind the famous tech demo using a pair of glasses to make the Wii present actual 3D images using head tracking software. In turn, this technique will now be used in Electronic Arts Boom Blox title. Not too shabby Mr. Lee, but he wasn’t done there. A new tech demo shows off using the Wii as a virtual whiteboard, a use that Lee notes could save schools thousands of dollars. Again, not too shabby.
Here’s something that nobody really seemed to be asking for. What if there was a way to integrate the PS3 with the iPhone? That way, you would never have to put down your new gadget iPhone, even when playing with your new gadget PS3.
Don’t ask and you shall receive. NetBlender is announcing that their BD Touch tehcnology allows for two-way connectivity between the PS3 and iPhone, at least when it comes to the Blu-ray playing capabilities. Sound neat? Well, the potential uses are…sort of.
Who says the DS and iPhone have to be mortal enemies? Perhaps, the beauty of music can bring these two touch friendly devices together? That’s just what three enterprising individuals have tried with their video “iBand.” Two iPhones and one DS playing Electroplankton team up for a nice little tune together. One has to wonder why the PSP was not invited to this impromptu jam session, and hope it wasn’t such an exclusionary reason as it not being touch sensitive.
Sure, rumors that the iPhone was prepared to take on Nintendo and Sony may have been scoffed at in the past, but is anyone laughing now? Sega recently premiered a demo of Super Monkey Ball (perhaps their best creation post-Dreamcast) running on Apple’s iPhone. Developed using the iPhone’s new software development kit (SDK), the game is controlled using the tilt function of the device. Wait, so the iPhone is basically a Wii and DS in one? Uh oh.
You just can’t keep a good rumor down. For years now people have speculated that Apple would at some point enter the gaming market. A recently revised trademark to include gaming devices would seem to add legitimacy to such rumors.
The trademark filing calls for “hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games.” That may be a mouthful, but what does it mean for you? (more…)
Google’s Android is their new mobile phone platform. While it isn’t the gPhone many had wished for, it is an interesting shift for the cell phone industry. With most major carriers signed up to produce Android handsets, it was already a potentially interesting avenue for game development. Dell just made it more interesting.
Rumors are circulating that Dell will announce a new mobile device running on the Android platform. While Palm and Microsoft have fought it out between one another for the past few years, the last year alone ahs brought two major new competitors to the handheld market in Apple and now Google. What does this mean to gamers? (more…)
For several years now rumors have been flying about that Apple was going to enter the gaming market with their clever design in tow. Rumors have circulated from an easy development platform within OSX, to a portable iPod/Gameboy hybrid, to a full on home console you’d connect to your TV. So far, none of these systems have materialized, though Apple has seemed to at least invite game developers to the Mac party, and the iPod has seen its share of casual titles ported to it.
But what if? What if Apple entered the gaming market with the some ferocity that Microsoft did, and now one generation later is a serious contender? What if Apple decided Apple TV wasn’t enough of a force in the living room, and they threw their considerable weight into the gaming market? What if we could see that system today?
Of course, much of the appeal originally of an Apple designed console was to be the intuitive interface and the simple, elegant design of the console itself. Well, Nintendo did that with the Wii…sort of. While the Wii’s startup interface is quite the departure from the Xbox 360 and PS3, it’s also not quite as elegant as the best Apple designs. For instance, the Wii’s photo channel lacks the smoothness we could expect from an Apple developed project, which would also likely include integration with Flickr, Picasa, and iPhoto. While the Wii’s Opera based web browser is a nice touch, it certainly lacks what we’d expect from a full implementation of Safari, such as on the iPhone. Along with a more robust web browser one could expect better integration with YouTube and iTunes, a la Apple TV. (more…)
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