The iPad is having a huge impact on the gaming industry, and the bog industry players are paying attention.

After Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook noted that iPad sales now surpass PC unit sales for HP, Lenovo, Dell, and Acer; Mike Capps, president of game developer Epic boasted that Apple’s new tablet computer has “more memory and higher screen resolution than an XBox 360 or Playstation 3.”

Hardcore gaming snobs may scoff, but Apple’s competitors are taking notice. In late October 2010, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said Apple was a more dangerous competitor than Microsoft.

76% of Apple’s revenues now come from ‘post PC devices’ — iPads, iPhones, and iPods, Cook said Wednesday. And gaming is one of the most popular applications for these devices. Of the top 25 paid iPhone apps, at least 22 are games; among the top 25 paid iPad apps, at least 12 are games.

To be sure, most of the casual games that are so popular on the iPad and iPhone aren’t as sophisticated — or expensive — as the best games on home consoles or dedicated handheld gaming devices. But Apple’s massive volume — Apple has now sold more than 55 million iPads — means its products are getting plenty of attention from developers.

It probably isn’t affecting serious gamers, but for casual games the iPad and smartphones have revolutionized the business as more people get hooked on Angry Birds or play simple games like chess or casino games. Now as the iPad gets more powerful with better screens, we might see it have an impact on serious gaming as well.

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

You might not be a believer in the iPad. I understand that. I respect that. As it stands, the device is pretty lackluster, and it’s certainly lacking in the gaming department. PopCap believes in it, though, or at least one of the co-founder’s does.

John Vechey recently talked with Eurogamer about the future of Apple’s newest gadget and the role it would play in PopCap’s development. “The iPad’s important,” he said, “but I think it’s going to be more important in three years … it’s probably going to take the second generation to make it really, like, ‘Wow!'” I’d say at least the second. Unless Apple’s initial release was the worst tease of all time, the iPad has a long way to go before it becomes a must-have item.

It’s not just the device Vechey is attracted to, it’s the accessibility to new content. “Here’s this new device that gets to more people with a really great e-commerce model attached to it … it’s really easy to buy on the iPhone — that’s part of what makes it successful.”

Read the full interview at Eurogamer.

Just a day after it was approved, C64 is once again off the app store. The developer foolishly left the feature that got the app rejected in the first place, the BASIC interpreter, in the application, just hidden like Yelp’s “monocle” feature. A few keystrokes and the interpreter was back up and running, and, of course, Apple heard about it.

So the app is back off the App Store until further notice. Why the C64 developer thought he would get away with it is beyond. Yelp got away with “monocle” because it didn’t allow you to do anything prohibited by the developer ToS. This, on the other hand, is strictly forbidden, whether it’s hidden or not. The developer issued the following statement:

Unfortunately Apple this night pulled the C64 App from the App Store. We had agreed with Apple to remove basic from the application, but as we believed it would be possible to convince Apple to let it in later on, we left it in the app to be activated remotely by us when we had “go” from Apple.

Clearly it wasn’t going to be remotely activated. It was activated by the user. Think this one through next time guys. It’s not that complicated.

The latest in Apple’s string of backtracking and approving formerly rejected apps comes to us in the form of the officially licensed Commodore 64 emulator app. I’m sure you’ll remember the app making headlines for being initially rejected because it contained its own executable runtimes for the ROMs of classic C64 games.

Well Apple has given the app another chance, and its already live in the App Store for just $5. The reason for the approval is that the 3.0 SDK makes allowances for in-app purchases, which probably means there’s now an infrastructure in place that keeps the ROMs and the app in the same location, one that doesn’t require access to any other parts of the phone. Purchase of the app includes Dragons Den, Le Mans, Jupiter Lander, Arctic Shipwreck, and Jack Attack.