Valve creates fake Apple ads, teases Steam on OS X
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pValve has been getting clever when its announcements recently. The company has intrigued fans by a href=”http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/03/valve-mystifies-gamers-with-portal-update.ars”placing hints of emsomething/em/a in an update to emPortal/em, and gamers are still following the clues to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. The next announcement? It looks as if Steam is coming to the Mac./p
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pValve has been sending cryptic images to a number of sites, using its characters and properties to create faux Apple-looking advertising. Francis is talking about a href=”http://kotaku.com/5484955/steam-mac-ads//gallery/4″”hating” different/a, Gordon Freeman a href=”http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/03/valve-teases-apple-announcement-of-something/”is wearing iMac colors/a… the list goes on./p
pWhen the beta for the new look of Steam went live, enterprising gamers found files with Mac OS X identifiers, getting the talk about a Mac-native client going. These images should get people talking even louder. With GDC right around the corner, we should expect a big announcement soon./p
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iPhone developer consolidation stirs fears among fans
iPhone publisher and developer ngmoco has acquired long-time Mac software developer Freeverse, according to Freeverse’s website and Twitter feed. While terms of the deal are unknown, it appears that Freeverse will continue doing business as an independent entity with its current management.
Freeverse has been a mainstay in the Mac software world since before the days of Mac OS X and has published numerous games, utilities, and productivity software for the platform ever since. The company has also published for Windows, as well as XBox 360 Live Arcade. In recent years Freeverse has also published for the iPhone OS where it has seen moderate success with its 25+ applications, the most popular of which are the Flick series of games and Skee-Ball.
While ngmoco has been around for considerably less time, the company has approximately 15 titles for the iPhone OS, including popular games like Rolando and Topple, and has most recently created a “premium social play network” called plus+. ngmoco was formed by former Electronic Arts executives in 2008 and offers both free and paid applications that almost universally make use of in-app purchases, a feature Apple made available to developers when it introduced version 3.0 of the iPhone OS SDK.
While claims have been made that the deal won’t effect Freeverse, it seems likely that there will be at least some changes. The company will no doubt be hard at work incorporating plus+ into its existing catalog of iPhone games and also including more in-app transactions in its offerings. Fans of the longtime Mac company might end up disappointed if more of ngmoco’s focus shifts to the iPhone and the company’s Mac, Windows, and console software is left for dead.
Regardless, the acquisition means that two medium-sized developers for the iPhone are now one larger fish in the App Store sea that is becoming more inundated each day by 40-foot sharks. We can only hope that a group of investors doesn’t turn Freeverse into just another iPhone company.
iPhone hardware and OS beat Nexus One for 3D performance
The Google Nexus One originally wowed us with its 1GHz Snapdragon processor, handily beating the 600MHz ARM core that powers the iPhone 3GS on raw performance. However, it turns out that the iPhone’s combination of PowerVR SGX GPU and support for ARM’s Neon floating point optimizations still give it a significant edge over the Nexus One when it comes to 3D animation.
Mobile developer Distinctive Games used a 3D game engine that taxes both the CPU and GPU to compare performance between an iPhone 3GS and a Nexus One. With a rendered background and two characters, iPhone clocks 60fps while the Nexus One manages just 30fps. The Nexus One has a much higher resolution than the iPhone—800 x 480 versus 480 x 320—so the Nexus One was limited to the lower resolution, resulting in an increase to 40fps. As the number of on-screen characters ramped up to eight, however, the iPhone managed a just-playable 29fps, while the Nexus One dropped down to 21fps.
Distinctive tested the devices further and found that two things were limiting the frame rate. The GPU in the Nexus One appears to not be as robust as that in the iPhone for 3D performance, and the CPU is being limited because the Android NDK (native development kit—used for apps that need direct hardware access, like games) doesn’t utilize ARM’s Neon floating point optimizations.
There is a workaround that allows taking advantage of the Neon instructions, but it involves recompiling the whole Android OS using GCC, and updating to a newer version of GCC for NDK compilation. iPhone developers already gain the benefits of these optimizations using the Xcode tool chain.
Android uses a Java-based SDK and Google’s own virtual machine for standard app development. The NDK, which enables native hardware development, is still relatively new. An expected hardware revision to the iPhone this summer—which may include a custom Apple-designed ARM-based processor—along with its more mature SDK, should keep the iPhone platform at the forefront of mobile gaming for some time to come.
Plants vs. Zombies on the iPhone: Nut up or shut up
Plants vs. Zombies was planted on the iPhone App Store today, and we couldn’t download it fast enough. The tower-defense-style gameplay, where you have to collect the power of the sun in order to place offensive and defensive plants on your lawn to fight off the incoming zombie hordes, was a blast on the PC and Mac, but it seems as if it had been designed for touch screens. We finally get to test that assertion.
If you need to know more about the mechanics and gameplay of the title, feel free to read our original review of the PC version. On the iPhone, the graphics remain clear and easy to read and understand, and the ability to tap on the falling suns to collect them and tap where you’d like to plant your army works incredibly well and is very satisfying. This is a direct port of the original game with a few new features, so don’t expect anything shockingly new, but this version of the game may be superior to the original due to the touchscreen.
Andrew Stein, director of mobile platforms at PopCap Games, laid out what the game includes. “We’ve stayed true to the original computer version with the full-featured gameplay of Adventure mode, and have optimized this adaptation around a seamless touch interface,” he said. “Plus, we’ve added great content, including the new Quick Play Arena which allows easy replay of any level after completing the Adventure mode, and more than a dozen achievements to reward successful completion of in-game challenges.” Ars pinged PopCap to ask about an iPad-specific version of the game, but were given a solid “no comment.”
We’ve been playing all morning, and at $2.99 this is an absolute steal compared to the original’s $20 price point. Today, we can literally say it’s time to nut up or shut up.
Have iPhone will fly: hands on with the AR.Drone
Are you interested in something you can fly? A video game? A hacking project? The AR.Drone is a quadricopter that made waves at CES, and it’s easy to see why: as a toy it hits all the right notes. It doesn’t really complete with the standard flying toys and models you’ll find on store shelves—there’s far more there if you decide to dig in.
Brief: Week in review: post-Christmas edition
Hope that Santa was good to all of you. This week, we’re wrapping the top stories from all across Ars into a single, tidy package. Enjoy!
From Cinepak to H.265: a brief history of video compression. Today’s video-rich Internet wouldn’t be possible without highly efficient compression. Ars rewinds the history of digital video compression to help understand how we arrived at the land of YouTube and Hulu.
How to obtain and install an SSL/TLS certificate, for free. Anyone operating a server on any scale should want a digital certificate to encrypt data between clients and services, whether for personal, office, or public use. Ars tells you how to obtain and install one, for free.
Verizon: $350 ETFs are a good thing, and they help the poor. Verizon tells the FCC that its new jumbo sized early termination fees don’t even compensate the telco for the total cost of VZ’s latest lineup of smart phone devices. The statement comes in response to an FCC letter of inquiry on the matter.
3D high-def movies coming to your living room on Blu-ray. Get ready for the 3D movie revolution to come your your home theater next year. The Blu-ray Disc Association has approved a final spec to deliver high def 3D movies on Blu-ray discs. If you don’t want to spend the cash for 3D hardware, it is thankfully backward compatible with today’s Blu-ray drives.
App Store success several times what Apple likely expected. The success of the iPhone App Store surprised everyone, even Apple itself.
Intel reveals next-generation Atom details. Intel has revealed the launch specs for the first-ever line of x86 products that contain both a GPU and CPU on the same die. Pine Trail, the next-generation Atom platform, will pave the way for future integrated CPU/GPU parts from both Intel and AMD.
Microsoft barred from selling Word, has plan for workaround. A federal appeals court has told Microsoft it needs to stop selling Word on January 11, 2010 due to its patent-infringing support for editing Custom XML.
Apple allegedly preparing devs for mystery demo in January. Apple may be planning to demo a device that’s larger than an iPhone in January of 2010, according to the latest rumors. In fact, some developers may already be preparing their apps for it.
Satellite TV to FCC: we’re special, don’t make us open up. DirecTV says that the new FCC push to bust open video should only apply to cable; satellite is plenty competitive already. Also, a tale of woe from a Comcast subscriber illustrates just why some common video decryption standards are needed.
Has Atari gone Chaotic Evil over D&D publishing rights? Atari is facing a lot of legal drama over the way it has conducted itself lately concerning its Dungeons & Dragons game publishing rights.
Comcast settles P2P throttling class-action for $16 million. Comcast got itself in hot water when it decided to use reset packets to slow down BitTorrent traffic back in 2007. Now, the company has settled a class-action lawsuit in Pennsylvania, promising to pay out $16 million to affected users.
Big Music: damn the numbers, give us antipiracy laws anyway. If P2P use is declining or holding steady without new “antipiracy” laws, are those laws still needed? Music trade groups say yes.
From Australia to the UAE: why games get the banhammer. We’re all used to hearing stories about games being banned in different countries, but what will actually get a game banned outside of the USA? The answers might surprise you.
etc: Looking for some light Christmas Eve reading? Touch Arcad…
Looking for some light Christmas Eve reading? Touch Arcade has a retrospective on iPhone gaming in 2009 (and a look forward to 2010).
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Apple may be building more first-party games for iPhone
Apple has big on a big gaming push lately, specifically when it comes to the iPhone and iPod touch. Even Nintendo is at least acknowledging that the iPhone is a market force, even if the company doesn’t believe they are direct competitors. However, a recent job posting for a “Game/Media Software Engineer” suggests Apple may be taking gaming seriously enough to create new first-party titles—a strategy that Nintendo and other companies use to provide an advantage for their respective platforms.
While the job listing doesn’t specifically mention programming games—”interactive multimedia experiences” is what a prospective applicant will be working on—it does suggest that the company is looking for an engineer with three to four years of video game development experience. It seems that having shipped at least one “AAA” game would be another prerequisite. “The position also requires a creative thinker who can contribute and comment on the design process as well as being flexible enough to aid in all aspects of production such as asset management,” according to the listing.
Apple May Be Building More First Party Games For IPhone
Apple has big on a big gaming push lately, specifically when it comes to the iPhone and iPod touch. Even Nintendo is at least acknowledging that the iPhone is a market force, even if the company doesn’t believe they are direct competitors. However, a recent job posting for a “Game/Media Software Engineer” suggests Apple may be taking gaming seriously enough to create new first-party titles—a strategy that Nintendo and other companies use to provide an advantage for their respective platforms.
While the job listing doesn’t specifically mention programming games—”interactive multimedia experiences” is what a prospective applicant will be working on—it does suggest that the company is looking for an engineer with three to four years of video game development experience. It seems that having shipped at least one “AAA” game would be another prerequisite. “The position also requires a creative thinker who can contribute and comment on the design process as well as being flexible enough to aid in all aspects of production such as asset management,” according to the listing.
Apple may be building more first-party games for iPhone
Apple has big on a big gaming push lately, specifically when it comes to the iPhone and iPod touch. Even Nintendo is at least acknowledging that the iPhone is a market force, even if the company doesn’t believe they are direct competitors. However, a recent job posting for a “Game/Media Software Engineer” suggests Apple may be taking gaming seriously enough to create new first-party titles—a strategy that Nintendo and other companies use to provide an advantage for their respective platforms.
While the job listing doesn’t specifically mention programming games—”interactive multimedia experiences” is what a prospective applicant will be working on—it does suggest that the company is looking for an engineer with three to four years of video game development experience. It seems that having shipped at least one “AAA” game would be another prerequisite. “The position also requires a creative thinker who can contribute and comment on the design process as well as being flexible enough to aid in all aspects of production such as asset management,” according to the listing.
