London Game Conference survey result on top gaming contributors

[AlphaWolf]

Neither actually, there are games that work on both old and new, and offer improved experience on the newer hardware. Asphalt 6 for example, I have it and it works fine on my old iPad 1 launch model, but it looks and runs best on the iPhone 4s. Some more details on that:

iPhone 4s version

So that game has three levels of graphics right now. Baseline would be running at 480x320 on an iPhone 3gs. The next step up is on iPad or on an iPhone 4 which gets you higher resolution. The third step up is iPhone 4s which gives the extra improvements shown in the article above. I think Dungeon Hunter 2 is the same, and there are others. iOS games still have relatively small budgets, that's the only reason we aren't seeing more and more of this. But they will come as the platform grows, and once Win8 tablets come out you will see it even more.

I love how you call your iPad 1 launch model old... it's been on the market for 18 months. I have an gen 1 ipod touch (4 years old), it runs pretty much nothing that's come out in the last 2 years aside from flashlight apps (ok not even those as most of the new ones are based on the LED) and tip calculators.

If they are going to regularly upgrade hardware, you have to upgrade or get left behind. You're left with games looking like shit in a few years or not running at all. And adding upgrades to a 0.99 game is a whole different thing from doing it for something with a $10+ million dollar budget.

And call me when apple (or any tablet manufacturer) starts shipping ipads with a proper controller in the box (and a TV connector), because until that happens you're not going to get any proper support for a serious game.

Consoles sell 50M in 5 years. iPhone sells 100M/yr and still growing exponentially. What is going to attract more AAA efforts? Smaller screens will mean less effort needed into asset creation (May be??? Perhaps a pro artist can help here).

Console buyers spend something like an average of $600 on games in those 5 years, ipod/ipad/phone owners spend something like $25. You tell me what's going to attract higher development budgets.

 

[RudeCurve]

I don't think it will be long before wireless iPad controllers become common but it's a chicken and egg thing. No one is going to buy a wireless Apple game controller if there are no games that require them. I predict this will change in the near future. All Apple needs to do is make the controller and let the big game developers make a timed exclusive "console" game that REQUIRES it. Now the question is what surprise game title will it be? If I had to guess it would be a new franchise by EPIC and would cost more than the traditional iOS game...

This will be a pretty cool idea because people will have already purchased a iPadX for other purpose but then by buying a wireless controller they could turn the iPad into a All In One console that dosn't even need a separate TV to display the game on even though that would be an obvious bonus via mirroring.

Apple could even sell a docking station that has a SATA HDD slot and port replication eg USB, HDMI, SD card slot which turns the iPad into a desktop Mac lite complete with wireless mouse, keyboard, Siri, iCloud, iTunes. 3rd parties already have these devices available that turn iPads into "Netbooks".

 

[AlphaWolf]

Unless it's shipped with the unit, you're going to end up with some tiny fraction of owners buying it.

 

[RudeCurve]

Unless it's shipped with the unit, you're going to end up with some tiny fraction of owners buying it.

That's perfectly fine...why would you buy the game and not buy the controller? Conversely why would you by the controller and not the game?

It would be smart for Apple to choreograph a synchronized launch of controller and games that take advantage of it. Not really hard to do and they don't have to worry about cannibalizing any existing Apple platforms.

As they say it's not a matter of if but when.

 

[zed]

He fixed it by selling millions of uniform devices and making it easy to develop on them,

what with XCode 4.2?
Nowhere near as good as visual studio (even old versions)
Ive used it ~8 hours, not just its usability, but it crashes quite often, my mac mini has got a grey screen of death as well once yesterday! What do I do then? I had to turn it off and turn it on again, for mac users,
Q/ is there some keyboard combination I can press to get it to restart?

 

[joker454]

what with XCode 4.2?
Nowhere near as good as visual studio (even old versions)

XCode is ass but you can dev on Visual Studio as well with other 3rd party solutions. At the time when we were goofing around with it we used Airplay sdk with Visual Studio to make iPhone/iPad apps.

I love how you call your iPad 1 launch model old... it's been on the market for 18 months. I have an gen 1 ipod touch (4 years old), it runs pretty much nothing that's come out in the last 2 years aside from flashlight apps (ok not even those as most of the new ones are based on the LED) and tip calculators.

Part of the reason there is that phones/tablets have been increasing in power at a dramatic rate. Look at consoles for a sec, they started around 1977 so by end of 2012 to get Xbox 360 level of power took 35 years. Next years Win8 tablets may actually pack as much power as a 360. So, tablets began in 2010 and in just 3 years made up the power gap. The iPhone area started in 2007 and it's also made quick leaps in power. So in this circumstance it's no wonder your older iPod Touch got orhpaned, things are just moving really fast at the moment. Power gains in phones and tablets will not always be this dramatic though. I mean I'd love it if they were, but that's just not realistic, so iPad2s ad iPhone 4s's should get much longer support.

And call me when apple (or any tablet manufacturer) starts shipping ipads with a proper controller in the box (and a TV connector), because until that happens you're not going to get any proper support for a serious game.

Yup I agree there but I figure Win8 tablets will have standard wireless gamepad support from day one, so at least on Win8 tablets all games will hopefully support a 360 gamepad.

 

[patsu]

what with XCode 4.2?
Nowhere near as good as visual studio (even old versions)
Ive used it ~8 hours, not just its usability, but it crashes quite often, my mac mini has got a grey screen of death as well once yesterday! What do I do then? I had to turn it off and turn it on again, for mac users,
Q/ is there some keyboard combination I can press to get it to restart?

Even with Xcode 4, the current phone platforms are still far more effective than cellphone development (for 300 SKUs of assorted shapes and capabilities) a couple of years ago.

Once they get the operation and economics right, the dev environments will just get better.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Part of the reason there is that phones/tablets have been increasing in power at a dramatic rate. Look at consoles for a sec, they started around 1977 so by end of 2012 to get Xbox 360 level of power took 35 years. Next years Win8 tablets may actually pack as much power as a 360. So, tablets began in 2010 and in just 3 years made up the power gap. The iPhone area started in 2007 and it's also made quick leaps in power. So in this circumstance it's no wonder your older iPod Touch got orhpaned, things are just moving really fast at the moment. Power gains in phones and tablets will not always be this dramatic though. I mean I'd love it if they were, but that's just not realistic, so iPad2s ad iPhone 4s's should get much longer support.

As long as there is a constant updating of this portable hardware, there will be a market for a console. It's not just a matter of being completely orphaned, its a matter of getting the experience that's close to the one advertised/reviewed.

And I really doubt we'll see a tablet next year that will run anything close to gears 3 or uncharted 3 or whatever. I'd love to be wrong, but I still think they're a few years from that.

Yup I agree there but I figure Win8 tablets will have standard wireless gamepad support from day one, so at least on Win8 tablets all games will hopefully support a 360 gamepad.

It's not just support though. I think it needs to be an out of the box experience ready to play if you're going to tap into that console market.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Consoles will die as everyone is going to have a pretty good gaming machine with them all the time. Who is going to care about a big noisy machine that looks just as good.

Consoles won't die because a lot of people like to play games on big screens with more complex controls than what a touchscreen can offer, and with more complex gameplay mechanics and stories.

Also, a lot of people who like games don't have smartphones at all. Probably not even in the US.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Power gains in phones and tablets will not always be this dramatic though. I mean I'd love it if they were, but that's just not realistic, so iPad2s ad iPhone 4s's should get much longer support.

Yeah, I'm going to buy my first iPhone next week and I'm totally shocked that it has a dualcore CPU. Seriously, the thing is almost as fast as my old PC and fits in my pocket... and let's not compare it to my first PC (386, 2MB RAM, 60MB MFM harddrive)

But what's next, quad core phones? I don't think anyone can justify that... even though I've seen some iPhone4/S comparison videos that demonstrated some speed advantages...

 

[rpg.314]

Consoles won't die because a lot of people like to play games on big screens with more complex controls than what a touchscreen can offer, and with more complex gameplay mechanics and stories.

Also, a lot of people who like games don't have smartphones at all. Probably not even in the US.

Consoles will die when the market of these gamers can't support their R&D and commensurate profits.

Just like scientists want HPC HW but the HPC HW died out anyway.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

*Looks at COD GTA Gears Halo sales*

Eh, nevermind, no point in getting into a debate.

 

[Entropy]

Power gains in phones and tablets will not always be this dramatic though. I mean I'd love it if they were, but that's just not realistic, so iPad2s ad iPhone 4s's should get much longer support.

This is clearly true. The lowest hanging fruit is already picked, and while there will be gains from process advancements, architectural enhancements and memory system improvements, the power envelopes are strict. If they manage a real world factor of two from 28nm and 20 nm both, they've done awesomely well. Much better than what desktops manage over a similar period at the same power draw, but still - performance improvements will slow down.

As far as application development goes, the iOS environment seems incredibly consistent and coherent. If a developer uses the iPad2/iPhone4s as a baseline for their product, they can look forward to an installed base of half a billion or so compatible devices three years down the line, basically all of them in use by private individuals. And that's disregarding new TV solutions. Publishing/distribution all taken care of.

It is a bit sad to see how many in these forums respond to a changing gaming landscape with fear, rather than seeing the possibilities created by having upwards of a billion game-worthy portable devices in the hands of users, all of them networked, and even the smallest developers getting access to instant global distribution of their product.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

It's not a question of fear, I just don't have any interest in gaming on a mobile device. I drive a car for commuting / traveling, I'm either at work or at home, so when I want to play something I always have my console at hand. I'm sure a lot of other people have a similar mindset, and let's not forget that all consoles are bought for gaming, but not all tablets and smartphones are going to be used for games.

 

[Cyan]

Consoles will die when the market of these gamers can't support their R&D and commensurate profits.

Just like scientists want HPC HW but the HPC HW died out anyway.

If consoles die then I am going to leave gaming for good. I also like brands, and I hope there will be some competition, like these days.

It's not a question of fear, I just don't have any interest in gaming on a mobile device. I drive a car for commuting / traveling, I'm either at work or at home, so when I want to play something I always have my console at hand. I'm sure a lot of other people have a similar mindset, and let's not forget that all consoles are bought for gaming, but not all tablets and smartphones are going to be used for games.

Same here. I am wondering though how we are carrying on with this subject when it's clear the news is based on a farce to make Apple look good. We all know the most influential people in videogames are Miyamoto and Carmack.