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

 

[Neuro]

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

 

[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.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Could this end up putting a lot of mechanical stress on the control wheel... all that clicking and jabbing?

 

[sinisterdesign]

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]

Keep the iPod for music (and maybe pics) GAMES ???? Nah !

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 !)

 

[dotnina]

This just sounds weird. I can't imagine anyone at Apple is really thinking the iPod needs downloadable games? What sorts of games could you really play on an iPod, outside of things like solitaire?

Strange.

 

[Blue Velvet]

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)

 

[nagromme]

Tetris

 

[wdlove]

The game download would be of no interest to me. This is encouraging since it might lead to the future. Would like to see information downloads like epocrates medical information.

 

[Jovian9]

Tetris

Oh yeah! That is THE GAME I want on my iPod.

 

[whooleytoo]

Perfect for Breakout!

There's a lot of money to be made in games for phones, so I can't see why they wouldn't make a lot of money on the iPod too - especially factoring in the extra storage, RAM, and display size available to make more compelling games.

Please...oh, please...oh, please... let them release an SDK!!

 

[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]

iTunes Games Store

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]

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]

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

 

[whooleytoo]

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

http://ipodlinux.sourceforge.net/

Installed it, gave it a look, but haven't tried any games though.

Two good things about making games available on the iPod are,
- it ties in (locks in?) customers who've bought a lot of games.
- Games are a great way of getting customers to upgrade more frequently. This is going to be increasingly important once the market starts to saturate. How many people would realistically dish out extra for a 120GB iPod over a 100GB? Apple need a new angle to keep people interested.

 

[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 for games

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...