iPhone joins mobile game revolution

Nokia N-Gage

The excitement surrounding the launch of iPhone 3G probably would have passed me by if it weren't for the fact that my in-tray was full of press releases all saying the same thing: "Hi, I'm a mobile games publisher. I'm releasing stuff on the popular new Apple phone. Please tell your readers to buy some."

Mobile games publishers are really excited by iPhone 2.0 - for a lot of the same reasons they were really excited about Nokia's N-Gage application. It's a single platform, so they don't have to write 600 iterations of each game to different handsets. It also has its own attractive online shop, which makes downloading games a pleasure - unlike trying to buy Java games from your standard mobile's network operator portal.

But iPhone potentially offers much more than N-Gage. OK, so the user base is microscopic in comparison to Nokia's. However, it's the type of customer that's important. According to startup iPhone developer Ngmoco, iPhone users spend up to 60% of their phone time on activities other than phone calls - they want to download stuff.

Also, there's a major mobile gaming bugbear that the iPhone addresses and N-Gage never did - the interface. The Apple product boasts motion sensing capabilities and a multitouch screen; it couldn't be more tuned into the zeitgeist if it changed its name to Wii phone and started offering fitness games.

Developers are also getting hassle-free access to the camera and GPS functionalities, which should finally lead to the development of mainstream location-based and augmented reality games.

And then, of course, iPhone is ... well, the iPhone, the latest wrap of indefatigable Apple crack; a semi-religious artifact crafted by industrial design demi-gods. When Steve Jobs says iPhone is going to be a games platform, it bloody well is going to be a games platform. When some suit in Nokia with an unpronounceable Finnish surname says N-Gage might be quite good, frankly who gives a damn?

Anyway, if you have succumbed, check out EA's Scrabble and Tetris conversions or Gameloft's Brain Challenge and Platinum Sudoku, or wait for the much-vaunted physics-based platformer, Rolando (rolandogame.com), which iPhone enthusiasts are calling innovative and groundbreaking, but the rest of us see as just a stylish take on some well-used ideas. Hey, that sounds sort of familiar ...