Apple, The Great Casual Platform?

Apple’s iPhone and iPod platforms have been great stages for launching some hot casual game titles. Besides the slick sexy look the platforms play games well, have great user interface features and, as developers are concerned, offer great support and turn around speeds.

While Nintendo and Sony own a lot of the market in terms of hand-held devices, Apple is growing in the space and offer developers an easier time getting their titles to market. Ironic considering Apple has never been a huge gaming platform for their primary computer architectures.

Although Apple is the upcoming shining star in this area, it’s important to remember they’re the underdog. It’s often in the best interest of the “little guy” to kiss up to developers and make their migration to the platform as easy as possible. Once Apple becomes the top dog in the industry, will they forget the “little guys” that made their platform so great and become just another big company in the mobile game space?

Hopefully Apple won’t forget about those developers that are making their platform great by turning their back on them once they’ve become a market leader. We don’t need another Montreal Screwjob.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Post

Win A Free Copy of Peggle NightsWin A Free Copy of Peggle Nights

Many folks know the name Peggle as an addictive casual game from PopCap Games. For those that have played the original Peggle game, you’re already up to speed on the addictive nature of the little peg bopping game with family fun and innovative game play.

Gamingpodcast.net has a unique chance to give away eight electronic downloads of the upcoming game title Peggle Nights for Microsoft Windows. We’re making it very easy to enter to win our contest, you can:

How do you know if you’re a Peggle addict? No better way than signing up to win a free copy of Peggle Nights! Feeling unlucky? Listen to the podcast and write-in and then post in our forums to double your chances of winning one of the eight copies we’re giving out! We’ll have four reserved for forum posters and four reserved for gaming podcast entries.

If you want to read my past review of Peggle, head over to GameStooge.com and read up, get ready and start entering to win!

Episode 709: Eat PikachuEpisode 709: Eat Pikachu

This week’s episode has the entire podcast crew reacting to Palworld. It’s priceless. They also discuss Alan Wake is coming to Dead by Daylight later this month and a Tetris prodigy triggering a “true killscreen” in record-setting run.

The news includes:

  • Bethesda will finally show off Indiana Jones gameplay at the Developer Direct showcase
  • Apple Vision Pro available in the U.S. on February 2
  • Palworld‘s Pokémon-with-guns adventure enters early access next week

Let us know what you think.

Would You Buy An Apple-Based Console?Would You Buy An Apple-Based Console?

Does the console market need any more competitors? We’ve seen record sales in the game industry for titles like Halo 3 and Grand Theft Auto IV along with huge expectations for Resistance 2 and some new Sony PlayStation 3 projects. Yet, the tiny little Wii product holds best sales records around the world as the heavy hitter, Microsoft and Sony, compete for the most awesome spectacle show of graphics.

Competition is a great way to drive down costs, drive up expectations and give consumers new innovative products with better quality. Imagine if Apple got into console development and produced a new highly sexy product with the hype and consumer desire of the iPhone or iPod.

“Apple has the infrastructure in place through iTunes to create a real value proposition for those that want to extend the capability of their console beyond gaming and has the cash — about $20 billion — to not only invest in the best components on the market, but in an online gaming experience that could rival Xbox Live.” (kotaku)

Apple’s showing a huge surge in recognition and sales thanks to the iPod and growing desire for Apple hardware competing against Microsoft’s Vista operating system. As more consumers turn to Apple for their music and mobile gaming needs, Apple must see windows of exploiting the gaming market further.

More importantly, nobody can pull off digital rights management (DRM) and locking consumers into a product line like Apple all while they beg for more. Consoles are little boxes of DRM waiting for happy consumers to buy into the concept all while avoiding the hacking and bittorrenting like you’ve been seeing on Spore in the last few weeks. Had Spore been released on a console this DRM fiasco would have been avoided because gamers don’t even realize (or care) that a console locks them into playing and, more importantly, buying the game for the hardware.

(more…)