More Games For The iPhone?

Although the iPhone already has a few games installed, it’s been the source of a lot of drooling and frenzy among game developers since its release.

 

The iPhone has the elements for gaming – a touch-sensitive screen and sensors to detect tilting. But Apple appears to have been slow to investigate the possibilities, perhaps because it needed to be sure all the main functions were working properly instead.

 

There have been some titles for the iPhone, but they’ve been established games adapted to fit the format. More to the point, they can only through the Safari web browser, which means users can only run them when online. And some of those wonderful touch controls don’t work with the browser.

 

Gaming companies who have adapted titles for the iPhone have found encouraging success. PopCap Games did that with Bejeweled, which has been played on the iPhone by up to 100,000 people in the three weeks since its release – the type of figures to make a company perk up.

 

We don't typically make announcements about what's in the pipeline, but based on the success of Bejeweled, we're looking pretty closely at the iPhone, said Andrew Stein, director of PopCap's mobile business development.

 

It’s quite possible that Apple is developing its own games for the phone – after all, it did that before with the iPod. Hackers have found iPhone software code that indicates Apple will eventually have games running directly on the phone, rather than through the browser, as with the iPod.