Even though we did kinda see it coming, Apple still managed to surprise just about everyone last week with the announcement that they are serious about bringing commercial games to the iPhone/Touch platform. They even had third party companies on hand to show off working demos for Spore and Super Monkey Ball on-stage at their iPhone Software Development Kit event. Despite the impressive showing, a number of questions remain unanswered — how well will iPhone games stack up against offerings for dedicated systems like th eDS and PSP? How will they control? No ‘A’ or ‘B’ buttons? Come on, you can’t be serious? While those questions will likely remain unanswered until we get some actual play time under our belts, here is everything we do know so far about Apple’s ambitious plans to bring gaming to the iPhone:
Graphics / Hardware:
The iPhone hardware is more advanced than both the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP (as it should be for $400).
The iPhone uses an ARM CPU clocked at 620 MHz (about twice as ‘fast’ as the PSP CPU).
Screen resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, slightly higher than the PSP.
Producer Ethan Einhorn from Sega stressed that he was not used to having so much graphical horsepower on a mobile platform when working on their port of Super Monkey Ball, saying “this is not a mobile phone game, this is a full console game.”
Controls:
iPhone games will gave use of both dual-touch input and the accelerometer (we still have no idea yet how sensitive the motion-sensing hardware is for gameplay).
The accelerometer is more like the Sixaxis than the Wii-mote — it only registers motion along rotational X and Y axes.
Connectivity:
Developers have the capability to add multiplayer functionality to games on iPhone.
Developers can also implement downloadable content packs in their games.
Apple has hinted at supporting worldwide high-score tracking in the future.
Third Party Support:
In addition to EA and Sega, Gameloft has announced plans to bring about 15 titles to the platform in 2008.
French Developer Int13 has announced that they plan to bring their mobile game Krazy Kart 2 to the iPhone. Hit the jump to view a video demo of this promising kart racer.
