March 4th, 2010 @ Sway Bar, London
UK studios converge to battle over who's the cleverest - have you booked your place yet?
Thursday April 22nd, 2009 @ The Brewery, London
The countdown to the MCV Awards 2010 has begun – with date, venue and categories announced.
July 14th, 2010 @ The Hilton Metropole, Brighton
The Develop Industry Excellence Awards is the only event which rewards the work done by Europe’s leading games development companies.
Buying experience for DS and PSP is poor says marketing boss
The competition between iPhone, PSP and DS is hotting up - Apple used its iPod showcase event today to highlight its position in comparison to other handheld games platforms.
Specifically, the firm moved to crticise the buying experience for the DS and PSP in comparison to the iPhone and iPod Touch.
"When [DS and PSP] came out, they seemed so cool. But once you play a game on the iPod touch, you think 'hey, these things aren't so cool any more..." said Apple's marketing VP Phil Schiller.
"We're talking about 25, 30, 40 dollars a title. The kids can't afford those titles. Worse isn't the price, it's the buying experience."
A demo slide at the event compared the quantity of games on the platforms: PSP's 607 games, DS' 3,680 and then iPod touch's 21,178, before kicking into a video montage of App Store games.
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Apple then showcased a number of new iPhone/iPod Touch games to prove the point.
These included an Assassin's Creed II game for the iPhone coming from Ubisoft (not, intriguingly, the developer of the original Assassin's Creed game, Gameloft).
Meanwhile Tapulous, creator of Tap Tap Revenge, also demoed Riddim Ribbon, its latest music game, which launches in October with three special Black Eyed Peas "content bundles".
Gameloft did debut later with a new FPS called Nova, while EA also showed off the iPhone version of its venerable Madden NFL 2010 title.
Apple's showcase was designed to promote a raft of new services and products, including the new iTunes 9 and new iPod hardware - however, with games given such a lengthy moment in the spotlight, it's clear the firm is taking games development and its relationship with the industry very seriously.
Click here for a full blow-by-blow report on this evening's event, from our sister site ME's liveblog
they should come out with a handheld and they should help sega with a new system they should call it dreambeyond ....
Ok so apple want to talk about price do they? Fair enough games on the app store are a damn sight cheaper than their DS or PSP counterparts but shall we compare the price of the actual hardware? For the iphone 3gs(which is only avaliable on o2 i might add) the price of the cheapest model on pay and go, because lets face it that is what the "kids" will be looking for the price is £340 for 8GB of space. Now compare this to DS wich is £99 on it's own and £129 ish with a game and PSPGo is £224 on its own with 16GB memory wich isnt even out yet and is still over £100 cheaper than apples cheapest non-contract offering.
If apple really want to get into a conversation about price they should really take a look at their own products before comenting on the competition.
you cant compare the gaming experience on an iphone with a psp!! the iphone is difficult to control, it has a smaller screen, and the amount of games it has most of them are small simple short games. i sincerely dont imagine playing GTA on an iphone for example, with your fingers all over the screen!
Well there's you don't need to imagine that juancs, since you'll actually be able to play GTA: CW on the iPhone when it comes out (it's been announced already).
Rich it is easily a fair comparison. Why are you trying to say you can only use the iPhone 3GS? You can purchase an iPhone touch for less than a DS or PSP which is why they have sold over 20 million of them.
I didn't know that to be honest Joe, perhaps some more research on my part would have been prudent. I don't have anything against the iphone or itouch as a platform though, I think the concept is fairly decent, after all both Nintendo and Sony are bringing/ have brought their own versions of the app store out, so Apple must be doing something right. I'd still like to get my hands on one and properly get the hang of them as I'm still not too sure about games controlled entirely with the touch screen.
And still there's no comparison between iPhone 'apps' and DS and PSP games.
Sure there's a lot of cool games on the app store (of the caliber of Rolando, Fieldrunners and Zen Bound) but you can't compare them will REAL titles on the other two.
The iPhone is still a phone with games, and the iPod is still a mp3 player with games, the other two are gaming machines and stop.
This is why the PSP has failed so far, by the way.
Let's not forget that to have an iPhone, one must also have the costly service that comes with it. They might have more games at a cheaper price, but I don't have to pay $100/mo for my Nintendo DS. Plus my DS has physical copies of the games I own, so I can borrow and trade with my friends.
Just sounds like typical Apple arrogance to me.
jason, not sur where your $100 is coming from but I'm paying €30. Borrowing is something companies generally don't like, so I can't blame them, (even though it's still possible on the iphone and ipod touch through account sharing). That's not Apple arrogance, that's PR, marketing and keeping shareholders happy.
Let's look at the basics. The DS and PSP are game systems. The iPhone an iPod are not. Therefore, the DS and PSP are naturally going to have greatly higher quality games, much better controls (the tiny touch screen alone is much too clumsy), and online gaming. I only have a DS, so the biggest examples I can think of are Mario Kart DS, Pokemon D/P, and Metriod Prime: Hunters. There you have excellent racing, strategy, and shooting games, that are detailed and very multiplayer-friendly. I'm positive that the few multiplayer games an iPod would have aren't nearly as smooth as those of a DS or PSP.
Apple. You make phones, computers, and MP3 players. Not games. That means, you shouldn't compete with gaming companies if you aren't a gaming company.
The theme in this article is price,
now i know that the average game/ app in the app store is under £10/$15, but do you really think that buying a game made by a big developer like Ubisoft or EA for the iPhone/ iPod will be priced the same as the home-brewed ones?
no, they will be charging a lot more, prob the same or just a bit under the price for psp/ds games and ok they will get some sales, but the majority of users will prefer to just buy the simple game that costs £2.
I'm not sure how Apple can demonstrate that their system is superior simply because it has more titles. Last time I checked quality and quantity were not synonymous.
I wonder if they included all the homebrew games that Sony don't sanction, or all the ROMs that can be played on the DS with particular cartridges?
It seems like the statistics could easily be weighted simply because Apples homebrew community is explicitly recognised.
