mi5moav said:
Bringing games to 30 million ipods could become a hassle. By allowing them access to the SDK they are also allowing them access to something all the other music download sites what access to their DRM. I think they will have 20 to 30 games released by next year, but this will be a very very slow moving thing. 4.99 is a great price and I am a little suprised to see Apple not developing the games themselves, but by not developing the games this is actually a good thing when you think about it.
Well, hold on, hoss
... there aren't 30M iPods "out there" that can play the games. Apple wishes...
As stated on the Games page of the ITS: "iPod Games are compatible with fifth generation iPods only. They cannot be played in iTunes."
It's possible to have 20-30 games by next year as you've pondered, but consider this... if Apple had offered 30 games to begin with, what's the chances that people would say "I'll gladly plunk down $150 for all of them"... most people, in my guestimation, would've just said "I'll pick my top 5 (Mine would be Tetris, Pac-Man, Texas Hold 'em, Mini Golf and Bejeweled).
However, by offering less than $45 worth of games, it's more likely that people will just click BUY NOW on all of them and try 'em all out. Heck it's under Fifty bucks. I know I will when I get my next iPod. I think, though, I'm going to hold out for the 6G. (According to Gruber over at Daringfireball, this is more of a 5.5G release). At the moment, quality over quantity is crucial. If there's weak games in the lineup, people will start to poopoo the whole deal. We are negative by nature. You've got to keep it down to the well-known/loved games that people grew up with.
About Apple making them themselves... that will probably come into play, but with games, people want to play games they know FIRST. What I think will actually happen all around is downloadable demos. Play the first level or two for FREE and then make the money when people are good and hooked.
Of course, in my opinion, the best thing they could do is get the Big N involved (Nintendo). Sony and MS aren't because of competition with their own Music/Media devices but Nintendo is probably the most Apple-like company in the gaming world. This has been a long-standing rumor so I don't take credit for the logic obviously -- I just think it would be awesome. Would Nintendo want to port titles over from the DS Lite, probably not, but perhaps they could create some fun games based on their Mario Party franchise. Nintendo is the king of Party games.
