Next iPod To Have Downloadable Games?

[MacRumors]

An article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press points to Digital River to produce electronic game content for distribution to the next generation of iPods.

Digital River's stock jumped 10 percent Friday on rumors that the Eden Prairie e-commerce outsourcer was negotiating with Apple Computer to download games to the next version of the popular iPod music player. "We actually believe this rumor, as management has suggested this was in the works in recent conference calls and investor conferences," analyst George Sutton of Craig-Hallum Capital Group wrote Friday. Spokespeople from Digital River and Apple Computer's iTune program did not return phone calls to comment. Sutton wrote that he believes Apple will control the downloads instead of Digital River, and he believes the game market will be limited by file size in the near term. Digital River shares closed at $38.70, up $3.54.

[rendezvouscp]

Interesting. They will probably be made for the iPod Photo and the iPod seperately, but who'll be making them for the mini? That's a lot of builds of one game.
-Chase

[AirUncleP]

I could see it as a link in the iTunes music website. While you're buying a song why not a game also?

[jwhitnah]

Finally, a reason to buy an iPod.

[sinisterdesign]

Originally Posted by jwhitnah

Finally, a reason to buy an iPod.

[sarcasm]yeah, thank goodness it will play more games b/c it's a really crappy music player.[/sarcasm]

[combatcolin]

Supersprint update anyone?

Puzzle Bobble would work well on the wheel.

[davegoody]

Originally Posted by jwhitnah

Finally, a reason to buy an iPod.

IMHO The ONLY reason to purchase an iPod is to listen to your music, if you want to play games buy a PSP or GameBoy DS etc. Waste of time (Battery life would be rubbish too !)

[Blue Velvet]

Originally Posted by davegoody

IMHO The ONLY reason to purchase an iPod is to listen to your music....

Doesn't make a half-bad external drive either... handy for work stuff (for me at least)

[Jalexster]

Originally Posted by davegoody

IMHO The ONLY reason to purchase an iPod is to listen to your music, if you want to play games buy a PSP or GameBoy DS etc. Waste of time (Battery life would be rubbish too !)

Originally Posted by cubist

I played with a Nintendo TS at Target a couple of days ago. Friends, it sounds weird, having two screens... but this is a very impressive machine.

I'm afraid the iPod games will be lame. I've already heard of portable game machines picking up PDA features; it may sound harsh, but the music player feature would be a lot easier to add to a game machine than the other way around. Sure, cartridges are crap... but still...

TREASON! HERESY! YOU HERETICS! How DARE you make mistakes about the glorious Nintendo DS. Not GameBoy DS. Not Nintendo TS. It's called the Nintendo DS!

And if that cartridges was crap thing was in relation to the DS, then I punish you with using Windows for the rest of your life!

[Neuro]

Digital River are terrible to work with. Good luck Apple.

[hvfsl]

I just wish Apple would do a Tetris clone for the iPod.

[Stella]

I think this is a great idea. You listen to music on the subway or bus whilst travelling to work.. and play a game too. I play games on my cellphone so be able to play games on iPod would be good. Could be a good money spinner. Though, the scroll wheel may be a bit limiting for some games.

I'm surprised that apple haven't released an SDK for the iPod so 3rd party developers can make uploadable software to the iPod. This would also be great.

[Sol]

Originally Posted by Stella

I'm surprised that apple haven't released an SDK for the iPod so 3rd party developers can make uploadable software to the iPod. This would also be great.

Would you want Microsoft to give you a WMA player for the iPod? Maybe you do but Apple definately would not.

Maybe the games rumour is about something like a Mac games section in iTunes. Buy games online and download them. Save them in your hard drive and CD-Rs. Apple doing with games what they did with music.

[Stella]

Originally Posted by Sol

Would you want Microsoft to give you a WMA player for the iPod? Maybe you do but Apple definately would not.

Maybe the games rumour is about something like a Mac games section in iTunes. Buy games online and download them. Save them in your hard drive and CD-Rs. Apple doing with games what they did with music.

Good point. However, you could limit the programmable ability for iPod - like not being about to add new codecs!

[Mord]

there already is a way to play more games on the ipod and thats through installing linux on the ipod but it's pointles as when i did it all my music came out scrambled and i have it in a variety of formats (aac, mp3, apple lossless).

[hob]

Originally Posted by Hector

there already is a way to play more games on the ipod and thats through installing linux on the ipod but it's pointles as when i did it all my music came out scrambled and i have it in a variety of formats (aac, mp3, apple lossless).

How do you do that?

I sometimes play the games already on my iPod but I'm starting to get bored with them. I'm also tiring of the crappy games O2 sells me for my phone so some good iPod games would be good

iTunes Game Store sounds like a plan

Hob

[iPost]

Originally Posted by Stella

Good point. However, you could limit the programmable ability for iPod - like not being about to add new codecs!

I've heard that the PortalPlayer chips that Apple uses in the iPods already have the ability built into them to play WMA content, but that Apple explicitly disabled that portion of the chip through firmware.

Also, I've heard that the 4th generation iPods already have the ability to play games (using Java). Apple just hasn't announced it yet. This was just a rumor that I heard... remember there was talk about some kind of "untapped" feature in the new iPods when they were released. Well, games were supposed to be it.

[Wonder Boy]

i would never use it, but what about an add on controller the plugs into the dock connector? the set up would look like and upsidedown "T" i guess, but it would have a similar orientation to a old school game boy.

[roadapple]

I would pay good money for super technobowl... QB Bills!!!!!!!!!!!!

[swissmann]

I never play the games the iPod already has. Maybe if they were better games but I might still just use my iPod for music.

[aggemam]

Java would be a perfect platform for the iPod to run downloadable games on.

Many cellphones already use Java for games and applications, making it very easy to develop games or apps that work on many different devices.

[cubist]

I played with a Nintendo TS at Target a couple of days ago. Friends, it sounds weird, having two screens... but this is a very impressive machine.

I'm afraid the iPod games will be lame. I've already heard of portable game machines picking up PDA features; it may sound harsh, but the music player feature would be a lot easier to add to a game machine than the other way around. Sure, cartridges are crap... but still...

[Sol]

Originally Posted by cubist

I'm afraid the iPod games will be lame. I've already heard of portable game machines picking up PDA features; it may sound harsh, but the music player feature would be a lot easier to add to a game machine than the other way around. Sure, cartridges are crap... but still...

Most of the iPod games are lame and colour did not make them better. Music Quiz is the exception but I think it would be better on the television.

The iPod could very easilly take a controller peripheral, maybe something with another click-wheel or plain buttons. The remote port allready does this. For games the display would be viewed with the short sides horizontal, N-Gage style. I think graphics would be all software rendered. Games would be Mortal Combat, not Tekken.

[carlos700]

I have gotten really boored with the current iPod games. So I guess some new ones would be cool. Although I would really like a calculator application.

[homerjward]

SNAKE!!! that'd be awesome with the wheel, as would a simple racing game, like select as gas and steer with the scroll wheel. it'd be even better on a 3g imho