iPhone 3.0 Interconnectivity &
The Future Of Mobile Games
These days, everything does everything. You can play the guitar on your games console and connect to the internet wirelessly using the processing power of a refrigerator. It’s not a huge leap, then, for games developers at Apple to produce online multiplayer game capabilities for the iPhone 3.0.
Whilst not revolutionary, this could perhaps spell trouble for console manufacturers. Apple have already announced a first-person shooter called LiveFire that includes online multiplayer and downloadable, fully-functional content (XboX Live, anyone?). Another exciting prospect is the lure of mobile-based Sims 3- complete with virtual stereo that allows players to make their Sims family listen to music downloaded from their personal iTunes collection. The question is whether people will continue to spend big bucks on expensive consoles when they can enjoy the same sort of experience on their smaller, more portable mobile phone.
Peer-to-peer connectivity is another function that was discussed heavily at this year’s iPhone 3.0 event. The feature could allow iPhone 3.0 users to connect wirelessly to each other without a requirement for 3G network connections or a Wi-fi network.
We’ve seen the success of the Facebook Connect system for iPhone (that allows users to share information such as highscores via the iPhone facebook application) already. This is living proof that the public responds favourably to a more social gaming experience- and Freeverse Software’s Colin Lynch Smith certainly sees it going somewhere:
“Facebook Connect is powerful because so many people already have Facebook accounts that it leverages that whole ecosystem more from a marketing than a gameplay experience at the moment, but that will change over time,” Smith said. “From a pure gaming experience, I think the proximity and networking stuff will be more useful for us in the short run.”