Apple's iPhone Gets in Touch With Games

EA and Sega are among the major early supporters of the phone as a game's platform.

Apple's do-it-all smart phone, the iPhone, has had a heady few months. It was launched in late 2007 and has sold more than four millions units around the world since then.

This week the company held an event (see Apple's web stream here) to talk up its new software developers kit, a set of tools that will allow coders to make everything from custom calendar applications to games.

Among the hardware features of the iPhone is an accelerometer - essentially a sensor that can pick up motion and translate that to the screen - and it has a multi-touch sensitive touch-screen as well. Games, then, are a natural fit for the device.

EA was first to step up at the even this week. Travis Boatman, a developer at EA, presented a version of Sims creator Will Wright's new game Spore, which has been confirmed for release on iPhone in September, according to Engadget.

Spore on the iPhone

The demo, which featured a primordial character creation system and flOw-like gameplay, was put together in only two weeks, demonstrating the ease of development on the system.

EA has confirmed that it has other games in development for the iPhone too.

"I think iPhone consumers are going to be blown away by the games we create for this platform," EA chief executive John Riccitiello is quoted as saying.

Super Monkey Ball was put on iPhone in two weeks

EA wasn't the only company at the event. Sega's Ethan Einhorn brought over a version of Super Monkey Ball that uses the iPhone accelerometer to move the plastic-trapped simians on the screen. "This feels like the way Super Monkey Ball was always meant to be played," he said.

Einhorn underlined that Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone is not just a cellphone game. "This is a full console game," he said. "If anything, we underestimated what the machine was able to do graphically from the start. We had to actually fly in an extra artist to start scaling up the quality of the visuals to match what the output was capable of giving us."

Gushing comments like that will only make the wait until the first applications start rolling out feel even longer.

Apple's Steve Jobs confirmed that the new functionality for delivering iPhone applications will be available to users in a free software update out in June. The new features will also be available for the iPod Touch in a paid update later this year.

Alex Wollenschlaeger
Editor, Kikizo