... That made zero sense. My point was that if there is little to no profit to be made from large scale, open world games then why did TASM and TDKR climb to the top of the charts on the AppStore and stay there for quite some time? Why is Gameloft even making these type of games if they aren't profitable? For example, while I wouldn't label them "hardcore", the IB games certainly aren't casual and have generate more profit for Epic then the gears of war series. Likewise, why are there three NOVA and Modern Combat games? Surely Gameloft must've made some kind of profit to continue making more and more ambitious sequels. And again, look at how successful Grand Theft Auto and COD Zombies were. I rest my case.
They may have climbed to the top of the charts but remember their price and how much profit they actually bring in. Not enough to attract EA, that's for sure. Also, this is a racing game with an open-world that would have to be made from scratch. EA can't bring over the console open-world for sure; iOS can't handle such a big city and so many effects. GTA was a port and has a top-down view; there's a reason why it's not first-person. IMO, EA will only develop an open-world for iOS if a new premium market opens and becomes successful.
As you said iOS is mostly a casual market. With millions of users even just a few percent of iOS users would be quite a big ammount of people, enough people for gameloft to make a profit from their games and to get the game pretty high in the AppStore charts. Also I don't think that just because someone is a casual gamer that means that will never ever buy something that isn't a casual game. With the low prices in the appstore when someone hears "The Dark Knight Rises" and sees it for just a few $ they'll probably buy it, even if it isn't really their type of game.
CSR Racing brought in several million a month (I think around 12, if I remember correctly). Again, these games can bring in millions due to the huge install base, not the price. Gta 3 isn't top down, it's 3rd person. It has nothing to do with hardware limitations, but with gameplay. As I've said before, I could see a5 devices getting the open world port of NFS. The vita is, and it has the same GPU as the iPad 3. With some tweaks and effects removed, I'm sure it is possible. I've certainly seen more impressive games on the AppStore. I think the fact that the iOS NFS is track based is more a gameplay decision that a hardware limitation. If EA doesn't make that much off of big budget games on iOS why are they making real racing 3, why was Dead Space such a huge success and why did they make Mass Effect?
The iPad 3 may have the same GPU as the vita (well, one has the PowerVR SGX 543 MP4, the other an SGX 543 MP4+), BUT you can't forget that the resolution of the iPad 3 is more than 4 times as high as that of the Vitas screen. That can make quite an incredible difference. Also: 2 CPU cores less (and each core is slower) in the iPad...
Lower the res and add AA. Simple. Push the game at iPad 2 resolution. CPU only calculates AI and physics, besides telling the GPU what to render. It isn't anywhere near as important as the GPU.
Looks quite impressive graphically, about on par with console racers there. Looks like a smooth framerate too. Nice. Just hope those darned tilt controls are scrapped or an option for touch steering is implemented, otherwise I'm steering clear as much as I don't want to. Also liking the particle effects, crash damage and physics...far superior to asphalt there.
Tunnels are much easier for the device to draw than an entire cityscape. Also less work to design. I noticed even outside that the view is often obscured by something, at least on one side.
NEW INFO ABOUT Need for Speed: Most Wanted and iOS screens http://www.idow.ru/upcoming-ios/427-need-for-speed-most-wanted-na-iphone-i-ipad-v-prodazhe-v-oktyabre-mesyace.html
Perhaps Google Translate is off or the language barrier is preventing me from fully understanding this last part of the article: "You will find many licensed cars - including the Russian car «Marussia», open game world, many blog posts, a lot of police and a lot of contenders. Output Need for Speed: Most Wanted in October." Could this just be referring to the console version? If this is open world (which I highly doubt), the tilt-only control scheme would not bother me any.
I really hope that google translate is not fcking with us! Open-world please let that be true...Polices do help the case for open world tho
That's a mix up in the translation and a mix up of the iOS and console version of the game. The console one is open world with all the cars unlocked at the beginning. If you can find it, you can drive it. The iOS version will be all tracks, as in roads but on predefined routes. It will not be open world. It'll have the usual unlocking system. Brilliant graphics and some more surprises. Still not open world though. Basically like all NFS on iOS just better because it's Iron Monkey (who developed most of the other ios NFS) and Firemint (the undisputed king of ios racers with RR2) working together as Firemonkeys to develop it. It will still be awesome. October is only confirmed as the release for the console one as well. The iOS should be at the same time but with them working on RR3 also, we'll just have to wait and see.
u do realize that ea said months ago that ios sales from the iphone and ipad were 80% of there money this year ..so that in itself proves everything u said wrong..
Touchgen article on Firemonkeys and Need for Speed. Some nice details on development. Link http://www.touchgen.net/firemonkeys-studio-visit-and-need-for-speed-update Video from it was posted a few pages back but article has some interesting details.
MOTHER####ER HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS. I have all the most wanted's this is my instabuy of the year... along with the ps3 version, hopefully.
