FingerGaming

Apple has launched a new firmware update for iPhone and iPod Touch devices, introducing a selection of new features and support for the social gaming network Game Center.

Apple’s Game Center application is a unified gaming network that brings leaderboards and achievements to supported App Store games. Through the Game Center interface, users will be able to search for recommended titles, track their friends’ latest gaming accomplishments, and challenge rivals via Apple’s multiplayer matchmaking service.

iOS 4.1 additionally allows users to rent television show episodes via iTunes and get music recommendations through the Ping application. The latest firmware update also enables HDR photography and HD video uploads for iPhone 4 devices.

Apple notes that Game Center is only compatible with the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4, and second, third, and fourth-generation iPod Touch devices. The original iPhone, the iPhone 3G, and first-generation iPod Touch devices are not supported.

Apple’s iPad is excluded from the latest firmware update. iPad owners must wait the release of iOS 4.2 in November to take advantage of iOS 4′s expanded functionality.

Tags: Apple, firmware, game center, ios 4.1, iPhone, iPod Touch

[How far will Apple go with its inroads into the gaming market? Gamasutra's Christian Nutt considers the latest evidence, fresh from today's press conference in San Francisco. ]

This morning in San Francisco at a Gamasutra-attended press conference, Apple laid out the plan of attack for its next generation of devices, and while it’s clear that the game industry is in its sights, it’s not a full-on assault just yet.

It’s no secret that Apple considers the iPod Touch a gaming platform — the company’s marketing has made this clear for some time, as have CEO Steve Jobs’ comments at previous events. However, with the implementation of its Xbox Live-style Game Center matchmaking and achievements service, the device just leveled up.

The company debuted a new commercial to showcase the newest iteration of the device, which launches next week. There’s little doubt that it will be mercilessly marketed throughout the upcoming holiday shopping season.

The commercial focuses on two major improvements to the latest generation Touch: HD video recording and the ability for FaceTime video chat.

The middle third of the commercial, though, focused entirely on games — and made sure to show Capcom’s Street Fighter IV prominently, clearly communicating that the iPod touch is ready for core gamers.

Besides recently becoming the most popular configuration in the entire iPod lineup, the iPod Touch “has become the most popular portable game player in the world,” Jobs climed. “The iPod Touch outsells Nintendo and Sony portable game players combined. It has over 50 percent market share for both the U.S. and worldwide.”

With Epic Games and Chair Entertainment’s Unreal Engine-powered action RPG/multiplayer fighting game, Project Sword, there’s a clear drive to attract the same audience that would have until recently thought about buying a PSP. And with Chair the only game developer presenting at Apple’s latest event — no Zynga this time — that speaks volumes, too.

On stage, Epic president Mike Capps said that Chair has achieved “intricate levels of detail you don’t expect to see on a phone device,” and — based on the Epic Citadel demo you can download right now — he’s right.

With the introduction of Game Center, Unreal Engine technology, and the addition of the more powerful A4 processor and slick Retina Display to the Touch, the pieces have fallen into place for iOS to become a serious contender for core gamers’ money and time — and more importantly, it seems that Apple is truly making a play for that.

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Tags: Apple, appletv, Industry News, iPod Touch

Epic Games is best known as the hardcore developer behind games like Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, but in formally moving its popular Unreal Engine 3 to Apple’s iOS devices, the studio hopes to bring hardcore flavor to iPhones, iPads and iPods.

The developer on Wednesday was front and center at Apple’s latest media event, showing off a sharp-looking UE3 demo dubbed Epic Citadel (available free) on an iPhone. Also on hand was Epic subsidiary and Shadow Complex developer Chair Entertainment, which revealed Project Sword, an iOS action adventure RPG that uses UE3.

The projects could be the beginning of a significant change at Epic. Here, studio president Mike Capps talks about how porting large games to an Apple iOS device can be done, gives details on licensing plans, and why “It would not be smart for us to try to get in and compete with the Bejeweleds and Angry Birds of the world on the iPhone.”

You put the Citadel Demo out now, and it represents a full game that’s coming down the road for you guys?

Yeah, and this is basically the environment, the castle space and everything which you saw there, it’s basically a “no, this isn’t fake, this really is real, it really does look this good” kind of thing, because the game won’t be out until later this season.

So Chair is developing the game?

Exactly. They’re the primary developers on the game side, and then Epic of course we’re working a lot on the tech with the Unreal Engine team.

Does Unreal Engine 3 now, for external developers, have iOS tools in it?

Well, we’ve got them internally, and we’re just starting to work with a few guys now, but yeah, absolutely, we’ll be putting them out to all of our Unreal Engine developers.

Do you use all of the exact same back-end tools, like Kismet and everything?

Yes. Everything’s supported. The difference of course is that it’s not quite as powerful a graphics processor as on the Xbox 360, so you’ll probably do some custom content work, but you’re using the same tool chain of UnrealEd and Kismet and the same physics tools and everything.

The Citadel demo is for 3GS and up. Is that also the specs for the engine, or is that up to developers?

That’s the current plan, because of the various shaders and things we have support for, that’s what we need a 3GS for.

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Tags: epic games, interview, project sword, Upcoming

Following Apple’s announcement that its social gaming network Game Center will be launching alongside revised iPod Touch hardware next week, Aurora Feint revealed “OpenFeint PlayTime,” a new infrastructure allowing real-time multiplayer gameplay across iOS and Android devices.

Addressing Game Center limitations, the OpenFeint PlayTime network supports real-time voice chat, and includes a unique solution to account for dropped connections.

In supported titles, disconnected players will be replaced with AI-controlled opponents until a connection can be reestablished. Game Center multiplayer requires a consistent peer-to-peer connection, ending games in progress when connections are lost.

OpenFeint PlayTime will be available to developers for both platforms in “Casual” and “Core” packages. The Casual SDK enables basic functionality like leaderboards and turn-based multiplayer gameplay, while the Core version allows for advanced functionality.

“Traditionally, multiplayer technology has been accessible only to top tier developers,” said Aurora Feint CEO Jason Citron. “It’s just too complicated and time consuming. So we invented PlayTime, which literally takes one day to integrate into a casual game.”

All supported games will also have access to OpenFeint’s existing achievement system and friend lists. Pricing for the OpenFeint PlayTime SDK has not been announced.

Tags: Apple, game center, Industry News, openfeint, openfeint playtime

Apple’s Game Center, a social gaming network for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad applications, will launch next week with the release of iOS 4.1, the company announced today.

Game Center will be available as a standalone application that tracks an individual player’s statistics, purchased games, and online friends. From the Game Center application, players will be able to invite friends to join games in progress.

Players can also search for multiplayer sessions among all Game Center users using the application’s matchmaking functionality.

The core Game Center application will regularly promote new and popular multiplayer games released in the App Store, and will include quick download links to featured applications.

Game Center-supporting applications will additionally feature leaderboards and achievements that add points to a player’s Game Center profile when unlocked.

Tags: Apple, game center, Industry News

Apple has announced the release of an improved generation of its gaming-focused iPod Touch hardware, now available for pre-order and shipping next week in the United States.

The fourth-generation iPod Touch hardware includes many features previously introduced with this year’s iPhone 4. New iPod Touch devices will include a pixel density-boosting Retina Display, an A4 processor that improves performance for graphics-intensive games, and a rotation-sensing three-axis gyroscope supported by titles like Gameloft’s N.O.V.A. and ngmoco’s Eliminate GunRange.

Other hardware additions include a built-in-microphone, a front-facing camera for Apple’s FaceTime phone application, and a rear camera capable of capturing high-definition 720p video.

The new iPod Touch will be available with 8GB of storage capacity for $229, 16GB for $299, and 32GB for $399.

At today’s Apple event, company CEO Steve Jobs noted that the iPod Touch “has become the most popular portable game player in the world. The iPod Touch outsells Nintendo and Sony portable game players combined.”

Jobs adds: “It has over 50 percent market share for both the U.S. and worldwide. It has by far become the most popular game player in the world. And over 1.5 billion games and entertainment downloads have been downloaded from iTunes just to the iPod Touch.”

Jobs additionally revealed that App Store downloads have surpassed 6.5 billion units across 250,000 hosted applications. iOS devices, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, have sold more than 120 million units worldwide.

Revamped iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle hardware will launch alongside the new iPod Touch next week. New iPod Nano devices will feature a multi-touch screen, while iPod Shuffle hardware now includes navigation buttons and support for playlists and VoiceOver.

Tags: Apple, Industry News, iPod Touch

Kids are playing video games “more than ever before,” notably online, as social networks, mobile and console games become more ubiquitous. But game makers might be missing out on the tween opportunity, says M2 Research.

M2′s summary of its report “The Kids and Games: What Boys and Girls are Playing Today” found that 91 percent of tween (8-11) boys and 93 percent of tween girls play games online. Facebook, home of the burgeoning social game market, is also the favorite website of tween boys and teen (12-15) girls — even though technically users have to be at least 13 to use Facebook.

“We have found kids tend to play a wide variety of games, and their favorite games and gaming sites change often,” said Louise Curcio, the M2 Research analyst who led the report. “There are opportunities for companies, and we believe the kids market has been overlooked.”

The report added that Nintendo is leading the portable gaming space, although Apple’s iPhone and iPad are gaining share among youth, namely girls, M2 said.

Sony’s PSP, the firm said, had the largest gender discrepancy — 70 percent of teen girls play PSP games versus 44 percent of teen boys.

The research also found that 20 percent of girls said the Mario franchise was their favorite video game series, making it the top pick among girls. Thirty-six percent of teen boys said they prefer Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, making it that group’s top pick.

Wanda Meloni, contributing author to the report, told FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra in a phone call, “The data definitely shows that kids are influenced by video games, probably more than any other media, yet we did an analysis specifically for online gaming, and found that total investment in online games for kids is quite lower than what’s been historically invested — Club Penguin was pretty much half of the total investment in the kids space.”

She added, “Companies have been slow to realize that this is a very strong market, and kids have a good deal of influence, and know what they want.”

And with an M-rated game — Call of Duty — being the top pick among young boys, that datapoint could show that there is opportunity to offer that demographic more age-appropriate content. “It even really shocked us when we pulled the data for the first time, that these trends are happening,” Meloni said.

Tags: Apple, Industry News, iPhone

[The following article was written by Tom Curtis and originally appeared at FingerGaming sister site Gamasutra.]

The Australian government announced plans to impose classification fees on game apps in the iTunes marketplace, sparking notable resistance within the development community.

The government plans to require developers to submit their games to the Australian Classification Board before they hit the iTunes store, which would cost developers between $470 and $2040 per game.

The government requires all films and games to pass through the Classification Board before they can reach the public, and Board officials believe that they must mend the loophole that allows developers to sell smartphone apps via online marketplaces such as iTunes.

App developers have lambasted the government’s plans, saying the classification fees will discourage small teams from releasing their games in Australia altogether.

Nick Lowe, of Let’s Make Games, told the Sydney Morning Herald, “Applying the same fees for classification of mobile phone games will impose a disproportionate burden on smaller developers, who often develop games in their spare time and on a shoe-string budget.”

“It’s likely that most developers will simply choose not to release their games in Australia. This could be incredibly demoralizing, particularly for indie developers.”

Other developers argue that the blurry line between utility and game apps renders the argument for classification invalid.

Bjango founder Marc Edwards said, “It’s very difficult to define what’s an app and what’s a game. What about if a utility has some kind of game as an Easter egg? Does that mean that all of a sudden it becomes a game? And what about desktop applications? They’ve never been classified.”

Edwards also noted that the sheer number of apps on the iTunes store would place a significant burden on the Classification Board.

The Australian government issued a statement explaining that despite the ambiguities in the iTunes store, the definition of “computer game” does “not exclude games distributed or playable online or on mobile phones.”

The matter has been taken to the May Standing Committee of Attorneys-General meeting, and has been declared “out of session,” meaning officials will consider the issue sometime before November, when the next meeting for classification issues will take place.

The Australian Classification Board has imposed strict limits on the games industry in the past, by rejecting new rating systems and barring the release of violent games in the region.

Tags: app store, Apple, Industry News

Google’s recent moves into the social gaming arena have been widely-published and closely watched — what opportunities does the search giant see in the world of games?

The company recently held a “Think Gaming” summit where it showed analysts its view of Google’s future in the space, and while Lazard Capital Markets’ Colin Sebastian says some of what he saw is under nondisclosure, he came away with some ideas of what the company hopes to gain.

First, games could drive adoption of its fledgling Google Checkout payment platform on the web and Android phones, in an arena that today is largely dominated by PayPal, the analyst says.

“We would point out that, to date, Google Checkout has seen limited success; however, the combination of Android platform growth (currently the fastest growing smartphone) and the Android Market — the biggest current rival to the App Store (which has generated $1.3B in gross revenue to date) — provide a key point of leverage,” writes Sebastian in a new note.

“We anticipate that the Android Market could over time eclipse the App Store, as eventually the sheer numbers of the market will pull developers to the platform,” he suggests. “As this happens, having the premier spot at the point of ‘checkout’ could prove to be a key advantage.”

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Tags: Apple, google, Industry News

Members of the iPhone Developer Program report that the latest beta of iOS 4.1 has dropped Game Center social networking support for earlier generations of iPhone and iPod Touch devices.

Announced earlier this year, Apple’s Game Center is a unified social networking platform for App Store gaming applications. The Xbox Live-like infrastructure adds matchmaking, leaderboards, achievements, and other social features to supported games for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Consumer weblog Engadget notes that beta 3 of the iOS 4.1 firmware update limits Game Center support to iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and third-generation iPod Touch devices. Previously, Game Center support was included for all iOS 4-equipped devices, excluding only first- and second-generation iPhones and first-generation iPod Touch devices.

User speculation suggests that Game Center’s infrastructure proved too taxing for earlier generations of iPhone and iPod Touch hardware. Many features introduced in iOS 4.0 — including multitasking — were exclusive to iPhone 3GS and third-generation iPod Touch devices.

Though Apple has not commented regarding the possibility of Game Center for the iPad, future support for the device remains likely, pending the release of an iPad-specific iOS 4.0 firmware.

Tags: Apple, game center, Industry News, iPhone, iPod Touch