Posts tagged with "games"

iOS Devices Become Kinect Controllers In Dodgeball Game

In the past, we saw several interesting Kinect hacks making their way to iPads and Macs thanks to the efforts of a vivid developer community willing to get more out of Microsoft’s motion-controlling peripheral than simple Xbox pairing and gaming. In fact, we were able to get our hands (and eyes) on a free Kinect 3D viewer available in the Mac App Store and an iPad playing together with OS X in a cool futuristic experiment. But hackers, as usual, don’t stop at curious experiments that are worth nothing but a quick test.

A group of hackers last week managed to build a custom Kinect setup that allows iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) to fire balls in a dodgeball game playable by a gamer in front of Kinect. The UI design isn’t as beautiful and attractive as Microsoft’s version of the same thing built on top of Windows Phone 7, but as you can see from the video below it definitely seems to be working.

The video is available for your viewing pleasure after the break. Who’s going to build a Kinect Angry Birds with iOS devices as controllers now? [via Engadget] Read more

OpenFeint Connect Promises Cross-Platform Integration, But No Simultaneous Play

It looks like mobile gaming OpenFeint has no intention on leaving all the fun to Apple’s Game Center. In fact, OpenFeint has become more than a simple alternative to the Game Center with cross-platform integration (OpenFeint works on Android devices, too) and in-app purchasable content that’s not tied to App Store approval. The service sports 65 million users and it’s about to expand a lot more with the upcoming launch of OpenFeint Connect.

Connect will allow iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, OS X and Windows users to communicate through the OpenFeint platform, share leaderboards and achievements as if everyone was playing the same game on the same device or computer. In fact, Connect could also work with Facebook games and a plethora of other online gaming services. Unfortunately though, simultaneous cross-platform play won’t be possible (guess it’s a little tricky to implement real-time multiplayer on iOS vs. Android).

A private beta of OpenFeint Connect is available here for developers who want to experiment with the API. [via Download Squad]

iOS Game Developers - Is $0.99 Too Low?→

iOS Game Developers -  Is $0.99 Too Low?

Interesting discussion over at Pocketful of Megabytes. The author concludes:

So is $0.99 really too low? Well, yes and no. It’s not too low, because that’s where it needs to be for games in this ruthless and uncharted territory to prosper (and because consumers love cheap goods), but it is too low because it inaccurately depicts the worth of a game’s contents. Without higher profits, money cannot be spent on improving the overall quality of the content found therein. Low profits mean low budgets and low budgets mean cheaply-made apps… the price tag is low out of necessity. It’s not ideal, but we’re stuck with it.

With $0.99 apps you attract more customers, but hard work is undervalued. On the other hand it is true that you never know what app you’re going to buy (no trials), but we also have to consider Apple’s 30% cut on those .99 cents.

So here’s an idea. What if Apple discontinued the $0.99 price tag, and automatically raised all prices to $1.99 – thus making it the lowest price point? Perhaps a more feasible business model for indie developers?

Would that stop you from buying the next Angry Birds or Trainyard?

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People Spend 200 Million Minutes Playing Angry Birds. Every Day.

Okay, we know Angry Birds has become a social phenomenon like no one ever did before, but the latest numbers shared by Rovio’s “mighty eagle” Peter Vesterbacka are just impressive. Absurd, if you think about it. Here’s the revelation: people spend 200 million minutes every day playing Angry Birds on the platform the game is available. 200 million minutes means every week 1,400,000,000 minutes are spent killing the infamous pigs that made this game famous. That’s over the billion, and I don’t even want to do the math for all the months Angry Birds has been available.

Of course, I assume other popular PC and console games have impressive numbers as well, but this is insane for mobile gaming – a market that four years ago was basically non-existent, or at least dreaming of reaching such a level of popularity. Remember when we used to play Snake on our Nokia cellphones? That’s exactly what I mean. Think about those days, and look at Angry Birds’ success now. The change in less than a decade is incredible.

You can listen to Rovio CEO talk about the proliferation of the birds below. With a new version coming out in March and a sequel likely to debut in 2011, I would buy some Rovio stock if it was available right now. Read more

Bejeweled 3 for iPhone and iPad Coming, Eventually

If you’re a loyal Bejeweled fan (dare we say “addicted”), then you must be happy to know that, eventually, Bejeweled 3 will “probably” come to the iPhone and iPad. Why the “eventually” and “probably”? The game, developed by PopCap Games, was released as a digital download for Windows and Mac last December and, especially on the Mac side of things, several gamers decided to put the download on hold, waiting for a mobile iOS counterpart. Good news is, hope isn’t lost as PopCap Games’ Garth Chouteau hints at the porting in a recent interview with Pocketful of Megabytes, which you can read here.

When asked about an iOS version, Chouteau says:

As mentioned above, we’re traditionally somewhat slow to adapt our games to other platforms after launching them on PC/Mac… Bejeweled 3 for iPhone/iPad is probably something we’ll do…eventually…!

Bejeweled 3 for iOS, if priced correctly and made universal in the App Store, would undoubtedly jump the charts in a matter of a few days. The game is popular, people want to play, PopCap wants as many downloads as possible – sounds like a plan, right? Yes, but we have to wait. Eventually, it will come. Hopefully sooner than later. [via TUAW]

More Evidence of iOS Gaming on the Apple TV Unearthed, Online Multiplayer too?

Since the Apple TV was revised last year with an iOS backend there has been ample speculation that Apple would eventually allow users to run apps and games and Engadget has today reported that some code in iOS 4.3 beta 3 further backs up that speculation. More specifically, the uncovered code references “ATVGames” and “ATVThunder” which also point to leaderboards, a controller, a way to schedule games and a storefront.

Two other strings were particularly noteworthy; “com.apple.appletv.play.live.thunder” and “.play.archive.thunder”. No one is really sure what they fully mean but as Engadget points out, the AppleTV is limited to 8GB’s of storage which is admittedly fairly minimal possibly suggesting that “archive” or “live” could mean streaming games or multiplayer. Engadget’s source also comments that  “OpenGL is mature and thoroughly implemented enough that streaming low bandwidth data and computing locally could happen”.

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iControlpad Game Controller for iPhone Finally Shipping Next Week

Over the past years we’ve been keeping an eye on the iControlpad, a Bluetooth controller for a variety of phones which, among other things, will support the iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPod touch. With a few adjustments and padding when needed, the iControlpad will provide an alternative (we can’t judge on comfortable from pictures) way to control iOS games, or any other device that supports Bluetooth.

As noted by Engadget, the iControlpad has left the vaporware stage and is now accepting orders with shipments starting next week. The design has been finalized and it looks pretty good although, admittedly, it will add bulkiness to your iOS device. That’s the price to pay for classic game controls on a 3.5-inch screen, I guess.

The question remains whether or not in the multitouch era buttons are needed at all. Most iOS games are perfectly playable and meant for multitouch controls. Some of them, however, could take serious advantage of the configuration offered by the iControlpad, like first-person shooters and arcade games based on virtual buttons on screen. We also wonder if it will be possible for developers to officially support the iControlpad in their apps by offering a way to entirely get rid of interface elements on screen, although maybe we’re just dreaming too much.

In the meantime, go check out the iControlpad here and take a look at your iOS game collection to see if the gadget would come in handy for you.

Are iOS Game Prices Creating Culture of Disposability? Nintendo Boss Thinks So

The head honcho of Nintendo North America, Reggie Fils-Aime has criticized the price levels of apps in the iTunes App Store claiming that the low prices create a “mentality” for consumers that portable games should only be a few dollars. Fils-Aimes who is the Nintendo North American president and chief operating officer felt that such a mentality also breeds a culture that believes content is disposable because of the cheap price and that this was one of the gaming industries biggest risks today.

Whilst Fils-Aime’s is not the most independent commentator on this issue with his company’s Nintendo DS platform directly competing with the gaming aspects of iOS, his points do have some validity. Games on the App store have tended to be below $5 compared to DS and PSP games that are typically well above that range. The presumption is the Fils-Aime’s fears that the App store prices will spread across to all platforms and lead to more gimmicky, simplistic games rather than well though out, in-depth game experiences.

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