I'm curious about something. Since the resolution on the iPad has more than doubled and speed drastically improved from the iPod touch, does this mean that porting of console games such as Madden, NBA Live, FIFA and the likes will be much easier. It would seem that with these improvements, the only change needed when porting these games from a PS3 or X BOX to the iPad would be going from joystick to touch screen controls and that the graphics will no longer have to be scaled down, as they currently are on handheld devices. If this is true, then maybe this will open up a chance for all of the big name consoles titles to now show up on the app store and be released the same time as PS3 and X BOX versions. Perhaps, someone with more technical insight can comment on this. These are just my thoughts. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
The iPad is 1024x768, HD gaming is generally around 1280x720 so there's still some scaling down to do. From what I hear the iPad doesn't even support HD video, so HD gaming would probably blow it up. It's in a dangerous area really, porting a 360 game down to the iPad would still take some work, in which case they might as well do what they do with the iPhone/PSP/DS and just create a separate game... but then if they make that separate game for those devices, they've still gotta up the resolution for the iPad, giving them more work than they need. I think the most popular type of game we're gonna see is regular iPhone games being given a quick makeover with a higher resolution. Games made specifically for the iPad will be a lot rarer unless it somehow takes off in a big way.
My understanding is that the new SDK will have "universal" setting options so that the same app can run on both the handhelds and the iPads. I imagine that some apps will take special advantage of the larger screen, but I can't see too many; the developer would be concentrating on a new, small market while ignoring the millions and millions of iPods/iPhones already out there.
It's interesting to hear the take from game developers on this because obviously they're excited. But at the same time, outside of optimizing the graphics, many of the smaller dev shops who make the bulk of games for the iTunes are in a wait and see mode. It's a balancing act since they have limited resources and can't heavily invest dev dollars in the iPad until they see how it fares with the consumer market. On the other hand, you're likely to see new control interfaces because of the flexibility of the touchscreen. This naturally opens up the ability to develop even more unique games. Whether this involves modifying existing PS or Nintendo titles or the development of new games remains to be seen. But it may make more sense from a dev standpoint to develop a new game from the ground up to better take advantage of the iPad. As always, only time will tell if this all pans out.
Console/PC gaming requires specs that are WAY beyond what we are talking about with the iPad. Think of the parts that go into making a gaming PC: dual or quad core processors each at 2000+ MHz, a separate graphics processor that costs as much as an iPod itself, gigs of ram, and a TON of bandwidth. Even if somehow you could squeeze that kind of powerful hardware into a small package like an iPad, you wouldn't be able to keep it cool, and fed with enough juice to stay on for any length of time. The best we could hope for is parity with current PSP/DS AAA titles.
Nobody in his right mind would want to play ports of other consoles on this atrocity. One of the reasons why iPod Touch games have been fairly successful so far is because they are the definition of handheld gaming (anywhere, anytime). Now that's something that you can't say about the iPad. I'd laugh at the first person who I see playing Nova with an iPad. This product is going to be a flop.
It would fill the void of other games that are really hard to implement on the iphone, like RTS games. But I don't really see the appeal of this device to hardcore gamers, casual maybe but not hardcore. Also there are a lot of games that would lose its value once "ported" to a larger device.
Four things: 1. There will be no "ports" of PS3 or 360 games on the iPad. The hardware is no where near powerful enough to handle such things. Now, iPad specific versions might happen, but those are not "ports" of games. We don't know much about the processors in this thing, but it seems to be system-on-a-chip, and while Apple specific (they bought P.A Semi, who design chips), I'm pretty certain it's basically a more powerful variant of what was in the iPhone/touch platform since the beginning: ARM CPU and PowerVR GPU (Apple also owns a small percentage of Imagination Technologies, makers of the PowerVR GPUs). Maybe it's a Cortex A9 and slightly more powerful SGX (original 1st and 2nd "gen" iPhone/touch used ARM11 and MBX-lite; 3Gs and the current 32/64GB iPod touch use Cortex A8 and SGX 525 or 535). 2. The iPad is $500 for the base SKU (16GB WiFi). The "magic" price point for game hardware has always been about $150 - $200 below that price point, and for mobile and portable devices the "magic" price point is typically no higher than $199 at most. Now, some will point to PC, and they have a point...however, I'll point out that the PC market is kinda dead right now and one of the reasons is cost of such hardware compared to a ready built home console. Others will point out their iPhone plan costing them an arm and a leg, and to that I'll point out the base iPod touch starts at $199. From what I've read a very large portion of the iPhone/touch userbase for games is made up of iPod touch users who tend to skew younger (teens to those in mid '20s). That's the "core" base of gamers on any platform, btw. iPad is priced too high to reach that "core" base, so I doubt games will be as significant as on the iPhone/touch platform. 3. This thing, like iPhone/touch, will live and die on exclusive content in terms of how appealing it's section of the App Store becomes. 4. The idea you're having, about ports from PS3 or 360, would be feasible if Apple would just update the goddamn AppleTV hardware, release an SDK for it, and open up an AppleTV App Store. I'm no techie, but I figure a multicore ARM Cortex A9 and multicore PowerVR SGX set up would be enough for somewhat good ports of games from the home consoles, and provide enough power for some pretty damned good exclusives too.
Lame thread There isn't going to be crap as far as games go for the ipad, it will be standard iPhone games like the ones we already have. Take the 3gs for example, they say that the 3gs is 10 times as powerfull as the 3g version and there really isn't anything available that uses that power yet and this summer we have the 4g coming out which is going to be stronger than the 3gs. I say screw the ipad and the 4g because I already got screwed when I went with my 3gs. There has been nothing for the 3gs so what makes people think they will make anything for these new products.
Hm... I would love to play Touchgrind on the iPad, but playing NOVA without using KB and mouse, only with dragging your fingers all over screen is not going to be easy/fun.
well there has been some apps just made for the 3gs. they pop up on the app shopper from time to time. chris.
uping the res per se wouldnt save ipad gaming the control elements itself need to be reorganized with the ergonomics. we have one hand each at either end of the screen trying to cover 10" of glass a direct iphone game on the ipad would have control elements separated by larger spacing causing more difficult control
Yes They do have some but none of them use the power the 3gs is suppose to have. Some are for the gps (compass) and a mini golf game has nice looking water and so on. They said that real racing can run with 40 people online versus 4 on the 3g version but not a single app uses that power because there are more 2g and 3g owners than 3gs owners. There is going to be even less ipad owners than 3gs owners because of the big price and little storage issue. The bottom line is if they don't make for the 3gs then why make for the ipad
excited? as a developer - i don't see this any more than an overgrown ipod touch. sure; there will be a additional sales; but depending on the games you write you probably are not going to make any changes to your applications unless you need to. our games will scale nicely - it is good apple has chosen a 2x scaling factor and not 2.05 or so (1024/480) and skewing the aspect ratios. i just see it as another ipod touch when it comes to being a developer. as for a consumer - it has potential for many things due to the increased screen size; but i dont see much from game developers honestly. the return on investment for making changes may not really be worth it - i guess one benefit is apple listing ipad apps in the early phases specifically to ipad users - free exposure/marketing.
Personally, I think the iPad is lame as far as gaming is concerned. From my perspective, it's like the iPad is in the middle of a real console (like 360/PS3/Wii) and its handheld brethren (iPhone/iPod touch). I guess it's cool but I don't really see Apple's motivation behind the iPad...other than having a tablet device in its roster of products. It's like the same exact thing as an iPhone/iPod touch, just more expensive and bigger - no real big differences. And lastly, I just can't see 'gaming' catching on like wildfire with this thing as opposed to the iPhone/iPod touch, mostly because they're mobile and can be taken anywhere (that's the beauty of them) -- not so with an iPad.
Wat did everyone say when the first iphone came out... Omg no games will work on that! Especialy any FPS! Now we have NOVA n modern combat! They r great games n r actualy better than some console games n last just as long... And wat did everyone say about the Wii! Its not next gen so it will fail! But now xbox n sony r creating hardware n new software to try n compete with Wii motion controls. Next Gen isnt about graphics its about gameplay n how companies work with it. Games will work on the iPad coz they will utilize the bottom of the screen where ur thumbs sit n everything will b there n not much at the top of the screen. Thats wat i think developers will do.
Except the iPad's so frigging big that it's too awkward to handle. Subscribe to the TouchArcade YouTube channel
I have to wonder if our friends at Slide to Play bothered watching the keynote address before messing around with the thing. The Gameloft presenters clearly showed how to reconfigure the game's controls to a more comfortable position for the iPADD. The fact the person in the video failed to try that out as a fix is no one else's fault but his own. Presumably, the final version of Nova for the iPADD will have the controls in a more appropriate position by default. Edit: On re-watching, I just realized that the person in the video doesn't know how to play the game. See how frustrated he is at the "hacking" sequence? He clearly is unfamiliar with the game, otherwise he would drag the pieces from the left to redirect the laser.
True. However, I can see myself playing an RTS game like Command & Conquer or Red Conquest on the iPad much better than I can see NOVA. It seems like it would be much to hefty to be able to play an FPS effectively on the device.
