Musings about the potential for games on Apple's iPad
To put it bluntly, Apple has done a poor job thus far convincing me the iPhone or iPod Touch are devices worth owning. I cannot put Apple at fault for this sentiment, however, because they aren't aiming for people like me. Target demographic and target market are not one in the same, and as someone who already owns a Blackberry, taking the plunge on an iPhone purely for gaming purposes has been a dicey proposition.
About one week removed from the unveiling of the iPad, I've had ample time to collect my thoughts about its utility as a gaming device. If the presentation was any indication, Apple does not choose to ignore games outright (they spent a good chunk showing off a first-person shooter called "N.O.V.A." and a new version of "Need for Speed: SHIFT"), so some part of me wanted to believe that the iPad would signify a new opportunity for Apple to tackle the games market seriously.
But when you can quickly and aptly summarize the functions of the iPad as "a giant iPod Touch," it's hard to get excited.
The first sign of trouble was the games they chose to demonstrate: a first-person shooter and a driving game. I'll give $50 to the first person who can claim to have genuinely had good fun playing either of these genres of games using a touch-screen interface. They don't work on the Nintendo DS, they don't work on the iPhone and they won't work on the iPad. The last thing we need is more games that slap pictures of analog sticks and buttons onto the touch screen just to (poorly) emulate the experience of playing with a console controller.
In direct comparison to the iPhone, iPad definitely has a leg up on pure hardware muscle. The higher resolution alone will make games look prettier — unless you plan to play the games designed for iPhone. Then you'll have to deal with either squinting at the normal-resolution versions or dealing with less attractive scaled-up versions. iPad-only apps will also live in their own area of the App Store (iPhone/iPad "combo" games won't be possible), giving game developers even bigger headaches about programming multiple versions.
I wish I could quietly ignore Apple's devices by writing them off as "not relevant to my interests" and be done with it, but their existence as gaming devices lures the talents of many game developers, and so I must pay attention. I can accept that games like "Canabalt" and "Rolando" games may never find homes on the more established dedicated gaming handhelds, but I can always hope that the App Store's game library will attain a respectable level of quality. The iPad, however, is not that hope.
