The Future: A Glass Content Ceiling?

With the iPlatform-past now long gone as it grows into a viable gaming platform, and the iPlatform-present generating revenue, things seem to be looking bright. Don't be fooled, though. The iPlatform's future is anything but certain.

Although there's a chance to make millions, most won't. There are even reports of zero sales for paid apps. With so much competition, it's inevitable that some good apps will never get noticed. 

Furthermore, in the iPast, many games started life at $9.99 but they quickly retreated to $0.99 territory. Revenue per unit sold is very low, and this could potentially create a glass ceiling for content quality.

Companies such as Gameloft are attempting to raise the roof with titles like Brothers in Arms and Hero of Sparta. However, rival titles like Billy Frontier and Nanosaur 2 are selling for 1/10^th the price and deliver arguably similar quality content.

Will players jump to the $9.99 price point for mobile applications?  Early signs indicate that some titles like BIA can succeed, but it's unknown if this will be the exception or the rule. Furthermore, will it be profitable for larger publishers to support the iPlatform at $9.99, or will they need more money to support the iPlatform in addition to the DS and PSP platforms?

The Future: Developer Innovation

Still further into the future, the question of technology comes up. As with all new devices, the revolutionary quickly becomes the ordinary. The iPlatform really has a lot of room for innovation even beyond touching and tilting in the palm of a player's hand.

Freeverse, Inc.'s Moto Chaser

Freeverse recently showed a demo video of Moto Chaser running on a TV by using the undocumented MPTVOutWindow options of the iPlatform's 2.2 SDK. This means that the iPlatform could potentially replace not only traditional portable consoles, but that it could also barge in on Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony's home console market.

Many developers may dismiss this feature as a mere novelty. That would be a dangerous assumption -- on par with the assumption that Nintendo would not succeed with the Wii.

Imagine a room with five tech savvy friends. Obviously they all have iPhones or iPods, but only one is a true geek and carries the A/V cables. This über-geek hooks his/her iDevice up to the TV and the other 4 gather around for an impromptu Wii-style play session.

The device chained to the TV acts as a server and the other 4 become iMotes.  The last remaining component is an iSports game. Don't bother checking; the name already belongs to another app.

This is beginning to sound interesting. Unfortunately, Apple will not approve any application using an undocumented feature of the SDK such as MPTVOutWindow. Technically this theoretical iSports game could be on the market right now -- Apple's iron-clad grip on the iPlatform acts as a bottleneck for developer innovation.