Last Thursday, Apple capitalized on the buzz surrounding their newest device, the iPad, with an announcement of a “coming soon” OS 4.0 for the companies’ popular iPhone device. The iPad runs on a modified version of this operating system. While the word on the street was all about the multitasking, the lesser discussed inclusion in the 4.0 OS is Apple’s Game Center.
The Game Center is Apple’s introduction of a social gaming network that will reside within the mobile device. In other words, think about the social (and associated purchasing options) features that consoles such as the Xbox 360 and PS3 offer, but all on the go. The Game Center will allow for friend invites, a number of multiplayer game options, as well as leaderboards and matchmaking features.
While Apple has previously stated that they’re serious about games, particularly in regard to the iPhone, this is Cupertino’s first rock solid “above and beyond” feature that definitively backs this statement up. Clearly, this is Apple’s attempt not only to bring gamers together, and presumably push more product, but also to cut in on the action that Facebook has been enjoying for quite some time now.
While the details in Thursday’s announcement were vague at best (possibly contributing to the lack of buzz), the beta release of the OS is slated to include a preview of the Game Center for developers, and include a set of APIs, thus allowing devs to start taking advantage of the newest features offered.
And since the iPad is already running a very similar OS, it’s not a far leap to assume that iPad owners’ behaviors and usage patterns would be similar to iPhone users’. Low and behold, a look at some initial demographics back this theory up. Clearly Games are dominating both of Apple’s portable devices. Now throw some social matching making and friend connections in there, and the avalanche of dollars is poised and ready.
And now for the bad.
In theory, Apple’s Game Center is amazing, and should open up hundreds, if not thousands of new opportunities for not only games developers, but developers of all apps. That is, however, if you’re welling to write them all in C/C++/Objective-C. This tiny little snipped, aka clause 3.3.1, has already sparked a debate, with points and counterpoints coming from Jobs himself.
The problem herein, is that a vast majority of today’s games run on a third party engine. And while Apple says that they want to get into the game of games, already limiting the ways and means of getting into the club is a bit counter productive. Yes, developers will bend to Apple’s mighty ways, as they are the keeper of the proverbial castle, but it does show a bit of their obtuseness and arrogance, especially when trying to cater to a crowd that’s traditionally been PC or none-at-all based.
Tags: Apple, Facebook, iPad, iphone, ps3, social gaming, xbox 360
