So you're saying that the work of bringing a console game to an iOS device just doesn't warrant spending more than a dollar? And people wonder why console games rarely come to iOS.
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'BioShock' Coming to iOS Later This Summer
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So you're saying that the work of bringing a console game to an iOS device just doesn't warrant spending more than a dollar? And people wonder why console games rarely come to iOS.
Dont have to tell me about controllers, I despise them. A good old keyboard and mouse is what I need for FPS. Anything else just falls short to me. I dont like the auto-aim features as it diminishes the accuracy training that Ive done and personally dont like the touch being ON the screen, it doesnt do it for me when I cant see the whole screen.
The par could be sub, yes. Awaiting reviews is always a good idea for a major purchase. But it could also be good.
And if it is, it will of course have the most value to those who have not played BioShock—which is a lot of people. (I'm a huge FPS fan myself and simply haven't made time to finish BioShock yet. When I do—I will use a mouse! But if I didn't already own the Mac version, iPad would tempt me: it's a lot easier to find time to grab 30 minutes here or there with my iPad, wherever I happen to be. That same portability will be welcomed by SOME who have already played it—if they want to play it again, maybe they also want freedom of where to play it. But they can't be the main market. BioShock newbies are.)
For those who love the game, what's not to like about it now reaching people who don't have a large-size gaming system and never will? Or who have one but find they never use it anymore and haven't tried Bioshock yet? I'm only partway through the game, but it's already good enough that I say it deserves whatever audience it can get!
That would be awesome. Even better with a jailbreak and some emulators. It's too lame playing Majora's Mask on a PC.
You seriously think this entire game is worth at most $1 dollar? The gaming industry is going to disappear if everybody starts thinking like you.
Yeah, because those console games don't work well on little handheld devices with no buttons and only a touch screen to work with. $1 is an exaggeration, but I wouldn't pay more than $8 for any of them.
Apple really needs to increase the file size limit for the App Store. Does anyone know if that's a technical limitation of iOS or just a policy?
The thing is we have these fancy 64-bit chips in the A7, and the A8 is just around the corner. Combine that with the new Bare Metal stuff in iOS 8 and you end up with quite a mobile gaming powerhouse, probably getting up to par with the 360 and PS3 but with more ram. But we're hampered by muddy textures in the tiny 2GB file sizes, even though these iPads are outputting resolution higher than 1080p.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think Apple should sell two models of Apple TV. There could be Apple TV 4 this autumn, which uses the older A7, 1GB of ram, with an App Store and mic for Siri. It would retail for $99 or $129 (might cost more because of increase in storage space for App Store, maybe 16GB locally). Then sell an Apple Gaming box that is essentially the same form factor as Apple TV. Maybe sell it in a few fun colors. Price it at $199-249 with a quad-core A8, 2GB of ram, and bluetooth controller support. Most importantly Apple should release first-party controllers. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out before Christmas from third-party vendors, but would love an Apple Controller because you know they would do it right. A lot of casual gamers would pick up such a console, and a lot of people who want an Apple TV but think "I may as well upgrade to the game box for my (kids/grandkids/etc)." I'd get one for my kid (if she was old enough) because the games on iOS are usually cheaper—and there are lots of kid friendly options available. Would be great to quickly switch between watching a movie and playing Minecraft or something while hanging out on the couch—while not ponying up for an Xbox One or PS4 and all the bloated interface and heat those machines put out.
The thing is we have these fancy 64-bit chips in the A7, and the A8 is just around the corner. Combine that with the new Bare Metal stuff in iOS 8 and you end up with quite a mobile gaming powerhouse, probably getting up to par with the 360 and PS3 but with more ram. But we're hampered by muddy textures in the tiny 2GB file sizes, even though these iPads are outputting resolution higher than 1080p.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I think Apple should sell two models of Apple TV. There could be Apple TV 4 this autumn, which uses the older A7, 1GB of ram, with an App Store and mic for Siri. It would retail for $99 or $129 (might cost more because of increase in storage space for App Store, maybe 16GB locally). Then sell an Apple Gaming box that is essentially the same form factor as Apple TV. Maybe sell it in a few fun colors. Price it at $199-249 with a quad-core A8, 2GB of ram, and bluetooth controller support. Most importantly Apple should release first-party controllers. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out before Christmas from third-party vendors, but would love an Apple Controller because you know they would do it right. A lot of casual gamers would pick up such a console, and a lot of people who want an Apple TV but think "I may as well upgrade to the game box for my (kids/grandkids/etc)." I'd get one for my kid (if she was old enough) because the games on iOS are usually cheaper—and there are lots of kid friendly options available. Would be great to quickly switch between watching a movie and playing Minecraft or something while hanging out on the couch—while not ponying up for an Xbox One or PS4 and all the bloated interface and heat those machines put out.
Then I hope that companies that make console games continue to ignore iOS as a general rule. The base just doesn't want to make it worth it to them.
Agreed—D-pad is NOT the way to aim on iPad! Hopefully they will not try that nonsense! (A couple early iPhone FPSs tried that and it was the worst thing ever.) Direct touch is the way to go for aiming.
Now... I know that a controller is not always a nightmare for aiming. It's not, IF:
A) You take the time to get used to it. (Why would I? I have a Mac that can aim properly!) Millions have—and these games are FUN once you're used to them, clearly. Fun is what games are about, a big TV is fun too. I do not judge.
and B) You do not object to auto-aim training wheels. Again, I do not judge. But for me, that's unacceptable. Console controllers are awesome for driving... and third-person... but for aiming? No. I want to play the game myself. All myself. No built-in aimbot.
(I actually use a console controller most of the time with my Mac—and even for FPS games! But I hold it in my left hand and aim with the mouse. Best of both worlds.)
P.S. A console controller COULD have direct aiming. There have been designs/experiments with a trackball or trackpad, which would be awesome if the components are accurate enough. The Steam Controller design shows real promise in that way (at least on the aiming side).
P.P.S. You're right that touch can block some of the screen—but it can be done right and block very little (and not block the important central part ever). What you're left with is still a nicer view than conventional tiny handheld games.
I won't try to convince anyone who has already accepted indirect aiming + auto-aim. You're having fun, keep at it! But that's not most people... and even those people could get used to a new control system, if they already got used to the console mess.
But to convince anyone else.... done
Or imagine using a little joystick to aim your actual weapon-arm in real life. So much worse than direct movement!
But you can get used to anything, eventually.... with a little auto-aim to make you think you are playing more than you are
(For that matter, if you already accept auto-aim, the same can be done to relieve frustration on less-than-ideal touch game control schemes. I'd consider it a failing, but it's a solution that is out there.)I was just thinking something similar. Apple's really squandering an opportunity if they don't start supporting programs on these things. They can easily put out hardware that beats anything but a PC or dedicated game console, and do it pretty cheap. I have no idea why they're allowing other companies to release umm...not so great versions of this when they could actually release a box (or boxes at multiple price points) that do this right.
Heck, sell one at $200 with 2GB, the newest version of Cyclone, whatever the best PowerVR graphics are and some reasonable storage.
These awful people who don't spend money on anything.
Having a $600 Dollar phone, getting a coffee for $5 but spending money for an app is incomprehensible for them.... Awful... BUT maybe it is a person living in the basement of his parents with no income ....
The other question is however what the game is "worth" on other platforms. I got Bioshock for $5 on Xbox 360, $10 on OS X, and you can find it even cheaper often. Since there's nothing "new" in this port it's worth questioning the price (whereas for me a game like, say, RealMyst Masterpiece Edition was worth buying the "same" game for the third time due to its visual overhaul and modern OS X compatibility.)
I do agree in general people seem to devalue the pure amount of time they get out of a game--compared to a book or movie you get waaaay more content, not to mention a replay value unlike static forms of media.
But you're not paying $600 for that phone, you're probably paying $200 and then forgetting about the subsidies that you're paying through your phone bill.
People are fantastically bad at figuring out what things cost or should cost. That's why financial planners have jobs--because people literally cannot account for where they spend their money, and they fixate on weird things (that "expensive" $5 app) instead of what really eats up their money (such as that $5 coffee every day, eating out constantly, et al.)
Except you were able to get it at those prices because they were able to make back the cost of putting it on those devices before you bought it. The same can't be said about the new port of a game. I'm not saying spend 30$ as though it was a new game, not that iOS will ever have a game people would spend 30$ on, but paying 10-15$ wouldn't be completely unthinkable.
Has to be just a policy, and I agree. Maybe it was good in the early days to "train developers by force" to make mobile efficiency a priority, but it's time to lift the limit. (Some apps bypass it by downloading stuff later--but that's easier said than done too.)
There will still be an incentive not to use too much space: app size affects sales numbers. But if a dev wants to go all-out, they should be able to.
Not until 32GB as standard. Apple would allow an app to be 4GB and still see a device with 12GB of usable storage.
Yeah, I'm not surprised they ignore them when people won't pay that much for apps. On every article about Nintendo avoiding iOS here, there is widespread bashing of Nintendo for not moving to iOS, but there are obviously very good reasons not to. No way they'd sell Mario Kart 8 or any game for $50 here, but now they're selling it for $50 plus hundreds of dollars of hardware to Wii U users, and they're getting people in their ecosystem instead of Apple's. They'd probably be forced to sell it for $5 on iOS, minus the 30% cut to Apple. Same goes with 3DS games. And the gaming experience hardware-wise on an iPhone is nowhere near that of a Nintendo console.
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Since they've got a successful handheld I don't think publishing on iOS necessarily makes sense for now.
I do think they need to dump their "big" console though and do multiplatform on PS4/One if they're not going to take having a console seriously. Wii was inane, Wii U is inane. They're both pointless, redundant pieces of hardware that only manage to roughly do what hardware from more than half a decade earlier did. Why spend billions selling it when you can just publish elsewhere?
I think the idea of giving up on a "big" console but creating a more powerful handheld that also plugs into a TV in some fashion might make sense for them to try first though. Nvidia's Shield tablet could practically be the Nintendo handheld in terms of hardware.
Basically though I think that current president is utterly incompetent. Every single system released under him has put gimmicks ahead of what's important for developers and games.
I do think they need to dump their "big" console though and do multiplatform on PS4/One if they're not going to take having a console seriously. Wii was inane, Wii U is inane. They're both pointless, redundant pieces of hardware that only manage to roughly do what hardware from more than half a decade earlier did. Why spend billions selling it when you can just publish elsewhere?
I think the idea of giving up on a "big" console but creating a more powerful handheld that also plugs into a TV in some fashion might make sense for them to try first though. Nvidia's Shield tablet could practically be the Nintendo handheld in terms of hardware.
Basically though I think that current president is utterly incompetent. Every single system released under him has put gimmicks ahead of what's important for developers and games.
The main limitation is space. I don't like the idea of having an SD card in an iPhone to store all my data, but it should be possible to use one just to store app data because iOS apps are static files, the same for every user, downloaded from Apple's servers when needed. Music files and such could get really cluttered if you could store them on SD cards, but apps would not.
Even if the experience would be the same, hardware wise, the big step is trying to ween people off of the idea that all apps should be 5$ or less.
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The right gimmick will sell millions and make you billions.
Unfortunately for them, that would mean eliminating all those iOS game devs who keep making ≤$5 games. It seems like they're dumping. Bloons Tower Defense 4 is worth more to me than the $4 I paid for it. I find it unfair to small game developers especially. If you don't sell millions of them, you probably can't even cover your company's costs.
I don't know what it is, but I just can't play immersive games on a mobile device. The only one I sort of got into was The World Ends With You, but even then, I never finished it.
I like more arcade type games on mobile devices. I wish there were remakes of old Macintosh classics like Bachman, Quagmire, Sammy the Cyclebot, Joust, Sparx, Super Munchers, Slime Invaders... those were the days.
I like more arcade type games on mobile devices. I wish there were remakes of old Macintosh classics like Bachman, Quagmire, Sammy the Cyclebot, Joust, Sparx, Super Munchers, Slime Invaders... those were the days.
IGN has the gameplay footage already!
http://youtu.be/7uKuqGv5sSU
And about the controllers versus mous/keyboard story. It's true that the mous/keyboard combo is the best. But I still prefer a controller in many ways. I am way more precise with a controller. Why? Because I grown up with a controller in my hand (not litterally ofc.) and not a mous and keyboard. Sometimes I play games like Battlefield 3 on the PC with a controller and still beating the **** out of everyone.
Sure I will lose against a pro but a pro pc user will also have a hard time against a pro controller user.
http://youtu.be/7uKuqGv5sSU
And about the controllers versus mous/keyboard story. It's true that the mous/keyboard combo is the best. But I still prefer a controller in many ways. I am way more precise with a controller. Why? Because I grown up with a controller in my hand (not litterally ofc.) and not a mous and keyboard. Sometimes I play games like Battlefield 3 on the PC with a controller and still beating the **** out of everyone.
Sure I will lose against a pro but a pro pc user will also have a hard time against a pro controller user.
Love me some BioShock, but . . .
Not seeing this on iOS. I played the hell out of all the BioShock games on my 360, 42" TV, and 7.1 stereo. Can't imagine getting any where near the same experience on my iPad, much less iPhone.
Maybe it can gateway some other folks into the franchise, tho.
Not seeing this on iOS. I played the hell out of all the BioShock games on my 360, 42" TV, and 7.1 stereo. Can't imagine getting any where near the same experience on my iPad, much less iPhone.
Maybe it can gateway some other folks into the franchise, tho.