iGamePodBoy

13 September 2006

Nuts!

Drat!

Bugger!

I had a whole interesting post planned about the new iPod games, and how they are structured (they’re actually zipped up folders, with fairly heavy duty anti-tamporing measures), and then I read this when I get home:

Dan Dickinson: Dissecting iPod Games

So, if you would like to imagine that I wrote all that (you may need to mentally insert some slightly dodgy grammar, and remove some of the detail for the correct experience) that’d be great…

Thanks.

However, I think iPod games are almost certainly more interesting then the movie announcement (from my point of view, at least). I downloaded Tetris today, and it’s perfect – I always have my iPod with me, and I’m normally using it for listening to music (so I don’t want to watch video), so being able to pass the time playing Tetris just works. The screen and scroll wheel both lend themselves to gaming – more then a mobile does, at least.

Mobile is of course the inspiration for the games, and from my digging it appears that not only is it the inspiration, they actually are mobile games. Tetris at least is made by a company called JamDat, who is owned by Electronic Arts and makes most of their mobile games, including Tetris which looks very similar to the iPod version. Also worth noting is that the mobile phone version costs £5, so the iPod versions are 20% cheaper.

It’s very interesting to see Apple starting it open up the iPod platform – at exactly the right stage of the game as well. The iPod is now reaching a critical mass – most people that would want one have one – so building on that instal base and both finding new revenue streams, along with further locking people in to the platform, is a very canny move on Apple’s part.

From: Articles

13 September 2006