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by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:44
The overnight success that some developers enjoyed with apps on the iPhone isn't likely to be repeated on the iPad, according to Ed Lea, chief technical office for Grapple Mobile.
The iPad requires much more work than just an HD upgrade of an iPhone title, he told GamesIndustry.biz, and he also warned that like the iPhone app store, inferior copies of successful apps could soon flood the market and push prices down.
"It's going to be a lot harder for bedroom developers to write a few thousand lines of code and release an overnight success on iPad as we saw on iPhone in the early days. The development process for world class iPad apps is much longer and the focus on user-interface is even greater than iPhone," he said.
"Simply building bigger versions of iPhone apps isn't going to cut it. Typically [users are] going to be in the home, consuming content on iPads. They will expect the large format screen to be fully utilised. On iPhone Apple made it very easy to create simple apps that look and work great. With so much extra screen size developers must put a lot more effort into creating interfaces that continue to delight users in an intuitive way."
Lea has been responsible for a number of apps on the iPhone including BoomBot, MMS and TV Plus, and works with Grapple Mobile to build apps for multiple handsets.
As with the iPhone, Lea expects prices to drop as cheaper clones of successful apps arrive on the iPad, forcing down prices across the board.
"I suspect that as we saw with iPhone, the price of apps will fall over time," he said. "Copycat apps will start to appear, taking the functionality of successful apps and reproducing them, often at lower price-points to the detriment of the quality of the apps."
Although today's launch of the iPad has seen dedicated Apple consumers flock to buy the device, it will require a longer term marketing effort to convince consumers the iPad is more than just a luxury gadget.
"The real marketing challenge over the first couple of months might well be selling the device to 'normal people'. For a lot of people it's a cool device that solves a problem they don't necessarily have."
The iPad launches today in the UK, with prices ranging from £429 to £699.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...opers-says-lea ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:43
The Nintendo DS family of consoles were again the best-selling hardware in Japan last week, with little change in the relative fortunes of the major formats.
Total sales for the DS range stood at 26,145 units, of which 14,108 were on the DSi XL, 9356 on the DSi and 2681 on the DS Lite.
Overall this represents a drop of over 2,000 units on the previous week, as the software charts also recorded relatively low sales despite a number of new releases.
Sales of the PSP-3000 stood at 22,462 for the week, also a drop of just over 2,000 units. Combined with 871 unit sales of the PSPgo the PSP family total stood at 23,313 for the week.
The best-selling home console of the week was the PlayStation 3, with sales down over 1,000 units to 19,075. The Wii though rose by a similar amount to a total of 18,465 units.
The Xbox 360 also saw a small increase on the previous week, for a new total of 4656 units sold. The PlayStation 2 sold 1175 units.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...-console-sales ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:42
Wi-Fi Sync is quite the gem (at least we think so) but it had some limitations -- namely, it only worked on OS X for desktop, and only with iPhone / iPod touch. Developer Greg Hughes pinged us earlier today to let us know he's thrown the gates off such restrictions. The jailbroken app now works for both iPads and Windows -- XP, Vista, and 7. The desktop client is free to download but it still cost just a hair under $10 for the appropriate mobile device. Worth the price of breaking free from wires? Your call.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/w...dows-and-ipad/ ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:41
Though we're not even a wee bit shocked to see a "usable" version of Froyo already available to owners of the G1 / Dream and Magic, we're definitely heartened to see that phones running 2008 specs can handily run a mid-2010 version of the platform. There's plenty of stuff that doesn't work yet -- WiFi and GPS, just to name a couple of biggies -- but we suspect that this is one dev community that won't give up until everything is working to their satisfaction. Motivation to hang on to otherwise outdated hardware for a few more months, perhaps?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/a...dream-and-mag/ ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:40
We understand that Wii Fit has dubious health benefits at best (whatever CTA Digital might say top the contrary), but apparently word hasn't reached the Navy's top brass. According to the Navy Times, recruits need more work than ever before to get into fighting shape, "given that many young people prefer computers and video games" to sports and physical activity. The solution, says Navy Surgeon General Vice Adm. Adam Robinson, is to use break in would-be sailers slowly, introducing "the equivalents of Nintendo's Wii Fit or Konami's Dance Dance Revolution" in basic training. This sounds rather silly to us, but what do we know? We're lovers, not fighters.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/28/n...lution-for-bo/ ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:36
The high entry price for Apple's iPad, coupled with the ability to produce richer, more creative software for the new handheld tablet, will help maintain a higher sales price for games in Apple's App Store.
That's according to EA Mobile's vice president of publishing Luca Pagano, who told GamesIndustry.biz that he hopes prices for iPad apps won't drop as dramatically as those on the iPhone did after launch.
"In a way the iPad will be less crowded on the marketplace compared to the iPhone," he said "The production values expected will be higher from consumers and I don't think there will be as much downward pressure on prices of apps for the iPad."
EA Mobile has released five titles for the iPad in the US, with two – Need for Speed Shift and Scrabble – in the top ten grossing apps since launch.
Need for Speed Shift sells for $14.99 in the US and goes live in the UK today for £7.49, while Scrabble sells for $9.99 and £5.99.
"It's very early days but I would expect an even more niche and premium audience," said Pagano of the iPad consumer. "Definitely people with a high disposable income, especially those that have the device in the beginning.
"I believe that with the right level of content, with the right level of quality and with the right brands people will always be prepared to pay a higher price."
Pagano added that although they both share similar technology, it's important to treat the iPad as a completely different device compared to the iPhone, and play to its strengths which in turn will help differentiate it from the other Apple handhelds.
"Because it's a unique device you need to develop games in a way that take advantage of its specific features and bare in mind certain aspects like its size and its weight," he said. "The accelerometer for example is very powerful for the device but it may not necessarily deliver the same kind of gaming experience that you have on the iPhone.
"It would be a shame not to develop games specifically for the iPad and games that are optimised for the iPad."
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...cing-ea-mobile ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:07
The last official release for the XBOX by the XBMC team was Atlantis, over 18 months ago. Since then, one brave soul (Arnova) has been merging code from the main codebase into the XBOX branch in our repository. Because there were many users out there that took advantage of these updates, we had no problem with this. But times have changed. The XBOX has hard limits for what it can handle. Some users are satisfied with these limits, and we encourage them to use XBMC there if they are happy. But it is a popular misconception that official XBOX development is still taking place by the team, so we have decided to set it free. We have enough on our plates already, and worrying about a deprecated platform just increases our workload. A few days ago the XBOX branch was finally removed from our subversion repository
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...s-Xbox-Support ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:06
The Tetris Company, LLC has notified Google to remove all Tetris clones from Android Market. I am one of the developers of FallingBlocks, a game with the same gameplay concepts as Tetris. I have received an email warning that my game was suspended from Android Market due to a violation of the Developer Content Policy. When I received the email, I already imagined that it had something to do with it being a Tetris clone, but besides having the same gameplay as Tetris, which I believe cannot be copyrighted, the game uses its own name, graphics and sounds. There's no reference to 'Tetris' in our game. I have emailed Google asking what is the reason for the application removal. Google promptly answered that The Tetris Company, LLC notified them under the DMCA (PDF) to remove various Tetris clones from Android Market. My app was removed together with 35 other Tetris clones. I checked online at various sources, and all of them say that there's no copyright on gameplay. There could be some sort of patent. But even if they had one, it would last 20 years, so it would have been over in 2005. It's a shame that The Tetris Company, LLC uses its power to stop developers from creating good and free games for Android users. Without resources for a legal fight, our application and many others will cease to exist, even knowing that they are legit. Users will be forced to buy the paid, official version, which is worse than many of the ones available for free on the market. Users from other countries, such as Brazil in my case, won't even be able to play the official Tetris, since Google Checkout doesn't exist in Brazil; you can't buy paid applications from Android Market in these countries
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...Android-Market ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:04
Greenpeace has once again named Nintendo as the least environmentally-friendly console manufacturer, a status it has maintained for the entirety of the Wii's lifetime.
In the latest of Greenpeace's regular reports 18 major consumer electronics manufacturers are rated according to their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change.
Companies are scored according to their stated policies, but controversially if no public information exists then Greenpeace automatically scores them zero points in that area. For a company as naturally secretive as Nintendo this has lead to repeated low scores and bottom of the table performances.
Nevertheless, Nintendo did see some small improvement in this month's results, with their overall score rising from 1.4, out of a possible 10, to 1.8. It gained points for managing chemical substances and publishing its standards for chemicals management.
In response to the last report in January Nintendo claimed that the Wii was the most energy efficient of all the current generation consoles. Greenpeace has acknowledged the energy efficiency of the Nintendo DSi AC power adapter, but criticised the company for increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Microsoft has fared little better in the list of companies, placed only two places ahead at number 16 in the list. This is an improvement of one place on the previous report, as its score rises from 2.4 to 3.3.
Sony ranks at joint sixth in the list, with a score of 4.9 - a slight decrease on the previous report. The highest ranked company is Nokia with a score of 7.5, with Apple at Number five on a score of 4.9.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...iendly-company ...by Published on May 28th, 2010 19:03
Nintendo has entered the growing row over suicides at the main Chinese plant of Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn.
The main plant in Shenzhen employs over 350,000, mostly migrant, staff. Since January 2010 there have been 12 attempted suicides and 10 deaths, most involving staff jumping from roofs.
Foxconn produces a wide range of consumer electronics including the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Amazon Kindle, Dell and Intel motherboards; and the Mac mini, iPod, iPhone and iPad for Apple.
As a result of the latter Apple has so far been the Western company most closely involved in the controversy and has promised to investigate accusations of long working hours and sweat shop style conditions and work practices.
According to The Times business section Sony, Hewlett-Packard and Dell have also launched their own investigations, with Nintendo now joining them.
Nintendo and the other firms all have their own guidelines for working conditions at outsourced factories, but it is unclear how closely or regularly these have been monitored.
As a result of the adverse publicity parent company Hon Hai Precision Instruments has said that it will raise salaries in all its mainland Chinese factories by 20 per cent. The basic monthly salary at the Shenzhen plant is currently the equivalent of just £90 ($131/€106).
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