LoL: Short on news

iphone-4-gamesI’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.

  

Apple bursts the mobile gaming bubble

Flurry iPhone games chart.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

  

iPhone version of Plants vs. Zombies makes a milly

Plants vs. Zombies logo.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

  

iPhone OS is a more popular development platform than DS and PSP

3 handheld systems.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

  

Unreal Engine 3 running on latest iPhone/iPod Touch hardware

Unreal Engine 3 on an iPhone.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.

  

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