I’ve been short on LoL news for the past few days, mostly because there isn’t much happening. I’ve also been a bit busier than usual, so I’ve not been able to give as much thought to the state of the game (or even play all that much).

Today, the iPhone 4 announcement pulled me away from my typical coverage. I really like the iPhone, and the latest version is a nice little upgrade. I’ll likely pick one up and sell my 3GS along the way to cover the cost of the new phone and the $18 pittance they call an upgrade fee.

The official LoL boards are still down, despite the announcement that gave a 2-3PM PST maintenance schedule. I’d like to think Riot is rolling out some new features in preparation for Season One but I have my doubts. You gotta figure we’re getting close, though. Changes to existing champions get smaller and smaller week by week, which points to some acceptable level of balance on the part of the developers.

Just look at the green slice on that pie chart. That’s exactly where Sony wishes the PSP was. Instead, it’s Apple. Yes, Apple. I never thought I would see the day that a computer manufacturer was stealing mobile market share from Nintendo but here we are. In just 21 months Apple has managed to snag 19% of the mobile market by revenue.

It’s a pretty impressive stat, considering the lower price of software for the iPhone OS. Can you imagine the number of transactions involved? The really bad news in this story is for Sony, whose revenues are down almost 50% from last year. The PSP Go was obviously not a hit – not that anyone expected it to be – and there hasn’t been much in the way of software to encourage any newcomers to the platform.

As far as total revenue goes, the iPhone OS is now 5% of the total market share, including consoles. If that’s not something for Apple to be happy about, I don’t know what it would take.

Source: Flurry

I’ve had to make a conscious effort not to get Plants vs. Zombies for the iPhone, simply because I know I’ll spend too much of my life playing it. That game is insanely addictive, to a point I think is fair to consider unhealthy. A couple hundred thousand people have been bitten by this brainless monster, putting the total sales figures for just 9 days at a million bucks.

As PopCap has it, the game sold more than 300,000 units in just 9 days, which set an App Store record.

“There’s always a concern when bringing a computer game to a mobile, pocket-sized device that something will get lost in the process, but in this case the overwhelming consensus is that Plants vs. Zombies is even more fun on the smaller touch screen!” That’s Andrew Stein, PopCap’s director of mobile business development. The company is also responsible for Bejeweled, a game that never leaves the top downloads page it seems. Apparently Bejeweled is now the first paid app to reach 3 million dollars.

Source: Kotaku

According to a recent study by Game Developer Research, the iPhone OS has surpassed both the Nintendo DS and the PSP as a handheld gaming development platform. The study showed that 19 percent of all developers are coding for the iPhone/iPod Touch, which is more than double the stats for both Nintendo and Sony.

If you think this isn’t a big deal, consider the following: handheld games are now 25 percent of the total gaming market, up from just 12 percent before the iPhone came on the scene. That’s some huge growth, even if you figure most iPhone gamers are playing simple things like Bejeweled 2 and Tap Tap Revenge. Sure, there’s no Scribblenauts, not yet anyway, but the platform has enough support from both gamers and developers that I’m sure we’ll see more serious titles in the future.

The problem for me is still the lack of physical controls. I know the touch thing is cool, but it’s also completely frustrating to cover your game screen with your thumbs. That’s not enjoyable. I’m still waiting for that universal controller add-on to launch.

Source: Electronista

This little bit of news will have you wishing someone would just make a standard controller peripheral for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Epic Games has successfully ported its Unreal Engine 3 to Apple’s mobile platform.

Anandtech got a chance to play with a demo of some familiar weaponry and level design. The demo looks really smooth, as the video over at Anandtech shows, though Epic said this shouldn’t be taken as a sign that the developer is getting serious about the platform. My guess is that it’s because of a lack of hardware support. The engine requires Open GL ES 2.0, a feature only available to the newest iPod Touch and the iPhone 3GS. Without wider adoption its probably not worth it to spend time developing a game that would only reach a portion of possible iPhone gamers.

Check the video over at Anandtech.

Zodttd, the intrepid developer behind the Game Boy Advance emulator on the iPhone, says he’s working on an N64 emulator for the 3GS and the new iPod Touch. Just imagine playing GoldenEye on the iPhone. Just imagine trying to strafe!

It sounds pretty cool, but really the controller could become a problem. Where do you put the Z button? And the C buttons? It’s a lot to try to cram onto the iPhone’s screen. I’m impressed, though, that the 3GS is fast enough to run most of the games. Zodttd did say that the higher-end games won’t run just yet, but that sounds to me like he’s got plans for them in the future. Now if someone would put together a standard controller accessory, everything would be just fine.

If it weren’t for Red Alert 2 I probably would have done a lot better in high school calculus. As it was, I spent most of my time worrying about when my next paratrooper drop was coming in the computer lab. This week EA released an iPhone version of the classic strat game with an extra map pack and the promise of more DLC down the road.

The game’s a little pricey at $9.99, but it’s got a full campaign for the Soviets and the Allies, 12 skirmish maps, and a map pack with another six skirmish maps. EA’s also promised that a future update will bring multiplayer over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth along with additional content. That’s more features than just about any game in the App Store, so maybe the ten bucks is worth it this time around.

The next patch is for the Empire of the Rising Sun and will add a third faction.

Gamefly released an app for the iPhone this week that could quickly become your go-to place for game info. The application is free, and integrates easily with subscribers accounts. You can manage your account as you would expect, and select games for rental on the go, but the app has a lot more than just account management.

The Gamefly app is full of game info, including control lists, walkthroughs for some games, cheats for others, user reviews, and achievement lists. You can get news feeds from ShackNews, which Gamefly picked up earlier this year.

Gamefly co-founder Sean Spector wants the app to be everything for every gamer, not just Gamefly subscribers. He mentioned plans to expand the list of titles in the app and even wants to add more news sources and reviews. I’m guessing he wouldn’t mind if the thing boosted subscription rates along the way.

Volkswagen pulled an industry first this week when it decided to launch a new car via an iPhone game. The move wasn’t a leak, but a deliberate attempt to get the 2010 GTI into the hands of its consumers in a way VW thinks those consumers can relate to.

“The GTI customer is a tech-savvy consumer who enjoys social networking, playing games and spending time on mobile devices — most often an iPhone. Launching the all-new 2010 GTI via the Real Racing GTI App allows us to connect with this savvy GTI consumer within his or her everyday life in a way that no 30-second spot ever could,” said Tim Ellis, VP of Marketing for Volkswagen of America. The Real Racing GTI App is available for free download, and offers players a chance to win one of six new GTIs to be given away over the course of the next six weeks.

If there’s one thing to love about Rock Band for the iPhone and iPod Touch it’s that playing the vocal part doesn’t actually involve singing. Can you imagine all the little teenies walking around acting like you’re doing something wrong by staring as they sing to themselves. Seriously, the iPhone version of the smash franchise is the inbred cousin to the real deal, bastardizing the best parts of the other games and charges too much for too little.

For starters, the game is $10. If by some freak accident you’ve not completely worn yourself out on Rock Band or finally picked up a real instrument, you just might be willing to pay that much. If you’re at all sane, though, that’s just ridiculous. You’ve heard of Tap Tap Revenge right? You know it’s $.99? Granted, you only get to play three “strings” as opposed to the four in Rock Band, but c’mon guys, it’s on your phone. It’s as far from actually playing an instrument as it gets.

If you really want this game, wait on it. I can’t imagine there will be a ton of people ready to drop $10 on such a weak game.