UT guys … get Steve on the horn right now and talk. Can you imagine what this community could do for gaming on the iPhone and Touch?
I second this idea!
I don’t know that I’d ever get to test/play/create one myself, but it sounds like a reasonable idea.
Just how powerful do you think the iPhone is? You think it can run Unity games, really?
I bet whatever was on there would run much worse than it would on any Mac made in several years. However, 3D content on the Nintendo DS has always been ugly, and people buy a lot of those games. You could still make something fun, educational, challenging, etc.
We are quite excited about this new opportunity, both as a tool/player vendor and as techie geeks ourselves. As time goes on and we learn more about what this means for us (how hard is the effort? how much porting work to make the player run on that device? etc.) we’ll formulate our own specific plans. For now we can’t offer much as we’re still a bit in the dark as most people are.
I’m certain the iPhone and iPod Touch could (in terms of hardware power) run Unity games–they just wouldn’t always be the SAME games you’d ship for $50 running on Mac/PC at high detail.
The iPhone has already demonstrated very fast, high-quality rendering of animated, textured 3D polygons. It seems to run CoverFlow faster than my PowerBook G4, which runs many Unity games with power to spare. And pinch zooming, scrolling, etc. are all rapidly-animated OpenGL textures, since the platform underneath is OS X. I know you can’t make a direct comparison to a Mac–the iPhone has limitations for sure, and a whole different processor architecture–but you could certainly build very fun games (both 2D and 3D) for the iPhone platform. Fun does not have to require higher polycounts or framerates than the iPhone/Touch can handle.
In addition, the iPhone has multitouch, highly accurate tilt sensing, and vibrate (force feedback potential). If Unity supported all three of these features one day, you could make truly unique games, nothing like any other platform. And I expect this platform will far surpass the installed base of any previous mobile game platform.
Maybe best of all: the iPhone and iPod Touch have the exciting combination of a) easy networking and b) a surprisingly fast-growing installed base (and future models will only snowball this further). Multiplayer iPhone/Touch gaming will be very practical and marketable, I’m sure.
I hope “Build for iPhone/Touch/ARM” arrives one day 
Given the hobbyist appeal of the iPhone, it might be nice to have it for the Indie version. Lots of iPhone hobbyists would spring for Indie. Maybe it could be a paid add-on that works with either Indie or Pro? Or maybe Pro-only, but also sell an iPhone-only Indie version that can’t build for Mac or Web? Something like that would get a ton of people trying Unity–and then upgrading to higher versions later.
I know we won’t know more for months, but I like the potential!
Yeah, it’s pretty exciting. But porting Unity to an ARM CPU and some PowerVR GPU (with unknown API for interfacing with it… probably some version of OpenGL ES) is not an easy task either. We’ll see
From a $$$ perspective of a developer i understand it, from a gamers point of view i don’t. I’m just not fond of playing mini games on a mini screen. Have you ever looked at people who are playing mobile games? Anyway isn’t quite suprising that the graphics aren’t this slow if you’re taking the resolution into account. As for the ARM i’ve read that they’re investigating to use intel CPUs in the future. Like always with Apple i wouldn’t hold my breath on the first generation of whatever they release.
The reason so many people play games on a small screen is that the aforementioned small screen is in their pocket, while their computer or console is back at home doing them no good
A lot of people also voted for George Bush… :O)
The main reason why a lot of people in total numbers are playing games on a mobile phone is simply because of the huge market share those devices have. The percentage due to wacky input, small screens, bad games and so on is way smaller but the share makes it shine.
It’s a personal thing, i don’t need to play 100% of my time games so i prefer investing the time i can afford for doing so at home were i can get most out of it. There are people who pay for ringtones and people who don’t…
I’m with Morgan on this one. There’s stuff you can do with the iPhone/iPod touch that you currently can’t have done anywhere else, and I think that ought to be exploited in the name of gaming.
I bet that this series of products improves at a much faster rate than “real” portable game systems. The Nintendo DS and PSP will be the same product for their entire lifespans (potentially 5-6 years or more) and then some, but the iPortables (and competitors) are bound to improve with each revision. I’m guessing a little less than a year each for those.
I have already developed games for the iPhone. It’s more powerful than you realize.
You guys take the iPhone, i take the Kaoss Pad and we’re all fine, yay!
Hah. I’ve got a tiny version of the Kaoss Pad on the lower left of my PadKontrol. I’d still like to have an iPhone. Stop being such a hater! It’s all good. :roll:
(not me playing)
I recommend these…
→ http://youtube.com/watch?v=1hdhCSSWn-s&mode=related&search=
→ http://youtube.com/watch?v=PwdWfPxpq8g
I would think this was a really cool device if you didn’t have to pay for included sounds and effects. I personally feel that hardware synthesis died with the last millenium. (That goes for pedals, too.)
I can do all that I’ve seen done with the Kaoss Pad with the PadKontrol, but the Kaoss Pad has even more delicious blinky lights.
The problem is that the audience can’t see them while the performer does. Here’s the solution!
I had this thing around for a weekend and i completely fell in love with it, also in conjunction with my Nordlead3.
Someone should make an ultra-compact device with a pad larger than a PadKontrol but smaller than Kaoss Pad, using a full color display and multitouch, that could communicate wirelessly with other devices and had both onboard mass storage and an SDK allowing development of all kinds of apps for it–from music to games to Internet stuff. They could even make a version that has a phone, if they got the unit thin enough to be pocketable while still achieving good battery life. If it contained a Wii-style tilt sensor, that could open cool possibilities for games AND for music control.
Ideally, it would also have the ability to call up YouTube videos, and then post messages about them on Web forums.
This is the closest thing I’ve seen to what you described, and that’s not very close. Still cool, though:
(sorry for the non-YouTubularity)