 |
Nintendo vs Apple and social gamingApril 8th, 2010 |
Reggie Fils-Aime of Nintendo thinks that Apple isn’t a viable profit platform for games. The picture for game developers on iPhone certainly isn’t all rosy — the App Store has effectively recreated all the bad elements of retail, without the profit margins.
On the other hand, there are literally 50,000 games and entertainment apps for the iPhone and iPad. Fifty. Thousand. Number for the DS? More like 2500.
And now, Apple’s taking a big big hint from the networked, connected world, and introducing a gaming social network to the iPhone OS.
Basically, achievements, social recommendations, viral mechanics, matchmaking. An Xbox Live for iPhone and iPad. And it sounds to me more like Facebook than Xbox honestly — given that it is paired with the recent release of microtransaction-based in-app purchases, and now also the iAd network, a method for app developers to serve ads.
This isn’t counting other things that are now available to app developers — and tie in perfectly to social gameplay. Stuff like in-app SMS. Access to camera data including real time camera, video, and the photo library. Map overlays. App gifting. Bluetooth keyboards (which opens a whole realm of controller possibilities).
iPad has a lot in common with TVs, consoles, and other closed systems. In fact, it is crazy, ridiculous closed. It also is starting to make ordinary consoles look obsolete, by being more open in very specific, narrow, constraining, chafing, commercially right ways.
This doesn’t necessarily lead to a good future, as Cory Doctorow points out. (The most obvious example of “not-good” being how much it prevents tinkering… consider that the primary software platform for tinkering today in games is Flash, and Apple doesn’t allow it).
But it also isn’t looking to the past.
Radio was once a hobby, did you know that? You made your own. You replaced tubes. You learned call signs. You twiddled knobs. For a while you bought radios that were locked to one station. Later on, you remembered stations via magic code numbers and turned a dial and did this thing called “tuning in.” Heck, we still see that legacy today — I am sure kids wonder why, given that stations are attached to buttons and names now. What’s the frequency number for? Who needs to know about frequencies? Isn’t a frequency an awful lot like a memory register or picture tube or understanding about the little flap that acts as a gas trap in the plumbing under your sink? You don’t give a crap about it. In fact, this whole “station” concept is starting to look silly. What’s a “format” for when you can generate one on the fly on Pandora?
Radio marched past hobby and into appliance. Now it’s a utility, and is piped in everywhere and we have just no idea how it works at all, and don’t care.
Thinking about how games make this turn is… interesting.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Raph Koster, Loodo and Glen Lougheed, Dan Robinson. Dan Robinson said: RT @raphkoster: New blog post: Nintendo vs Apple and social gaming http://www.raphkoster.com/2010/04/08/nintendo-vs-apple-and-social-gaming/ [...]