iPhone 5: 16x9?

[AlienSpace]

What do people think of the latest rumors pointing to the new iPhone having a 16x9 aspect ratio? If true, the screen will indeed be bigger, but it's all going into a taller screen. Does anyone actually see this as positive? I dont. More fragmentation, more complication for developers, and only seems to benefit video playback of 16x9 content.

[~J~]

Don't really see it a problem at all.

For some developers, the addition of a fraction more screen estate 'could' open possibilities of having the on-screen controls moved into that extra estate thus not overlapping the main game screen. Or even statuses such as highscores, lives, countdowns, information could be moved into that area, again giving the actual game screen less information and more of the game itself.

Really really don't see it being a problem what-so-ever; sure some will complain, others will see it as the end of the world but if it happens, we'll have to embrace it, use it to our advantage or get stuck in the past.

I'm pretty sure it's going to go the same route as 16:9 / 4:3 monitors in that once it happens, going back to an older screen just isn't going to feel 'right' like most people feel when they've gone from a widescreen to a 4:3 monitor. That extra DOES make one hell of a difference!

[DemonJim]

My only concern when new hardware arrives is how few developers seem to care about supporting it in their existing games.

A few devs will update their existing games to support the 16:9 aspect ratio really quickly, but many will be happy to just let it auto-pillarbox, and will probably never bother updating. Not nice for the user.

The Retina update proves this - I still have lots of iPhone apps without any Retina support (not even a Retina icon). The Retina iPhone has been around for TWO years - there's no excuse. These apps will soon be deleted from my iTunes library never to be played again (I'll give iPad apps a little bit more time...)

Even the big names with no financial excuses don't update Our Gaming Brand 1 as they think it's a great reason to upgrade to Our Gaming Brand 2 HD. This just makes me avoid annual release shovelware from big publishers. Indie will be king once again

So yes, for the non-lazy developer a 16:9 iPhone should not be a problem. And if the iPad one day goes 16:9 too then it will actually ultimately simplify things. Rest assured that Lead Wars will support 16:9 as soon as possible.

[Hercule]

Don't call lazy a game developper that don't want to spend more of their time to maintain a .99$ game...
Developper usually prefer working on the next game instead.

I'm making an universal app with icloud an gamecenter and that's my choice.
I understand dev that don't want to do that.

Lead wars seams to be a great game, and it seams to be easy to adapt it on 16/9.
That's not the case of most other game concept with pixel perfect GFX (no zoom system or 3D), where you may need to redo most GFX works.

[DemonJim]

Originally Posted by Hercule

Don't call lazy a game developper that don't want to spend more of their time to maintain a .99$ game...
Developper usually prefer working on the next game instead.

I'm making an universal app with icloud an gamecenter and that's my choice.
I understand dev that don't want to do that.

Lead wars seams to be a great game, and it seams to be easy to adapt it on 16/9.
That's not the case of most other game concept with pixel perfect GFX (no zoom system or 3D), where you may need to redo most GFX works.

Agreed yes a fair point, sorry, I was generalising a lot. But your point only really applies to the Retina update. A bitmap based game won't have an issue updating to 16:9 as it will mostly be a UI alignment issue (and some reworking of background images), yet so many old games won't be updated, this was my point (and so many 3D games still don't support retina).

Even though I'm a dev I look at it from a gamers perspective - they quite rightly don't care what reasons we have for old games not supporting the new hardware whether valid or not. They don't care we made a game before Retina was even announced. They want great games, simple as that. They might be old games to us but if they're still for sale on the App Store then in my opinion they should support the latest hardware.

[nvx]

I agree with DemonJim the switch to 16:9 should not be a big deal for developers to deal with (even those games using pixel based sprites should theoretically be able to adjust the GL projection matrices without any loss in detail) but I disagree all developers are expected to update their entire library of games to coincide with each new system change

For "great" games, sure.
But each gamer has their own opinion on what a "great" game is, and there will always be someone who thinks a game is great when the developers themselves dont care about it anymore, usually because they have since made tens of new games or sequels of the original

If a developer really wants to keep their entire games library updated to the latest hardware or API changes, that is their decision only and cannot be expected of everyone in the industry because in many cases it just is not possible.

I'm a gamer myself so I know how frustrating it is when developers seemingly abandon their games, yet I almost always forgive them for it when I see those same developers continue to create better and greater games.