Do you know what this is?
It is the Apple Bandai Pippin, one of the worst gaming consoles of all time; its main fault is Apple’s choice to use a trackball instead of a joystick.
But no one remembers this – today, everyone sees Apple as this zen-like company with a style, whose creations are always 1 tier up from the closest competitor. And not the creators of one of the worst abominations of gaming.
Now, more then 10 years after the launch of the Pippin, Apple is prepared to take another shot at the gaming market with the iPhone/iPod Touch.
I own an iPod Touch, and love it for what it is, but it will never replace my PSP as a portable game console.
My main problem is with the games in the app store. The games there are nothing like the titles on the PSP or DS. Sure the games are fun, but most of them are only fun for around 5-10 minutes before you start to get bored. I could game for hours on the PSP without getting twitchy. Some games on the PSP/DS takes over 10 hours to complete – instead of the 30 minutes for most Iphone games.
In a recent Keynote, Apple proclaimed the amount of iPhone games just overshadow the amount of games on the other platforms. As seen above this, Mr Phil Schiller talks about the sheer number of games, compared to the DS and PSP.
As much as I like Apple, I have to cry foul on this graph.
A game on the PSP and DS takes maybe a few month to a year (depending on quality) to make, usually by a team of 30-50 people. A game rakes in millions to cover the millions of dollars in development costs.
For the iPhone, a game can be created within several weeks to a few months. 40% of the titles are probably lite or trial versions, while a lot more is just quizzes or take 5 minute to complete, and let’s face it; most of them are junk.
I respect and admire iPhone Devs, but a 99-cents iPhone game will NOT stand up to a $20 game which can last me a few weeks.
Another big problem is with the screen. I love the multitouch screen, but whenever I play a game, my fingers covers up the screen, making it harder to see what is right beside you. Nintendo also realized this, and made the DS’s touch screen stylus based, while giving you another screen so you will not block anything. The iPhone, however, has no such counters to the problem.
There are no buttons on the touchscreen, which puts a serious dent into iPhone’s gaming. When someone click a physical button, his brain double check by checking what’s under the finger. The iPhone’s lack of buttons is annoying, and users will frequently click the wrong buttons, especially in intense situations.
The accelerometer is a great alternative to the joystick, but it is overprecise. I rather have a analog stick like the PSP to drive cars and fly planes, where I will not accidentally overcompensate so easily.
I think the iPod touch/iPhone is a awesome machine, but saying it is the third handheld is simply nonsensical. It is good for 10-15 minute bursts of boredom, but does not really give you the satisfaction a PSP/DS gives you.
(Author’s note: Disagree on the article? Comment below or tweet me. But please, do it in a way that it don’t seem you are a fanboy.)