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The Next Step in iPhone Gaming: Nintendo NES

Submitted by Ryan Spoon on March 27, 2009 – 8:15 pmComments

At the break of the new year, I listed 20 predictions for Digital Media in 2009. The third prediction was:

iPhone Gaming Will Progress Beyond Novelty

At the time of that article, the biggest application was iFart which, while not a traditional game, represented what one of three game types to successfully hit the iPhone:

1. Accelerometer based games (SGN is the king here)
2. Role playing games / storyline games (such as iMob and SGN’s Agency Wars)
3. Novelty games (iFart, Beer Pong)

I find games like iMob and Agency Wars fascinating because they are perfect for the iPhone: always connected, progressing storylines and ideal for several short play sessions.

I also think that what SGN has built for with their accelerometer-based sports games is terrific – bringing together the Wii’s form-factor with the connectivity of mobile (and now Facebook Connect).

But I want more. I find the current gaming offers interesting…. but mostly ephemeral. Nothing, for instance, I would shell out $9.99 or $29.99 for… after all, Playstation 3 games now run $59.99 – and I spend a lot more time with my iPhone.

The next generation of iPhone gaming needs to look back to the original Nintendo. Place the original track pad and A/B buttons on the iPod’s touch screen… and use traditional gameplay navigations that have been a staple of controllers for ages:

iphone-game-575

Even though it is less sexy than developing against the iPhone’s accelerometer, gameplay would be richer and longer-lasting. Super Monkey Ball is fun… but the novelty wears off soon there after – particularly when the controls aren’t terrific.

Imagine connected, online equivalents of Super Mario 3 or Zelda that play on the iPhone and tap into Facebook Connect… it might not be sexy (and I might be dating myself) but it would be powerful. And with the creativity and horsepower developing against the iPhone – why can’t the next Mario, Zelda and Metroid emerge?

Update: To be clear, I am not suggesting that the iPhone bring back Nintendo games (see comments); rather, the point was that Nintendo-inspired controls would introduce more compelling games on the iPhone.

Popularity: 17% [?]

  • I also wish they could get a SNES emulator onto the iPhone. Playing Chrono Trigger while commuting to work would be awesome. But NES games would be fun too.
  • Thanks for the list, I appreciate it, keep posts like this coming, bookmarking you right away!
  • CJEUK
    Yeh, the iphone is stupidly good at gameing...i love it!!!


    by the way...for great Up-to-Date news, tips, tricks and great deals go to www.bestiphone2u.com
  • ryansucks
    oh yeah, this will never happen. emulators are expressly forbidden in the sdk agreement.
  • ryansucks
    wtf is SGN?
  • um... A and B buttons reversed? Why?
  • James
    I was playing NES games on my N-Gage QD FIVE years ago. Big deal.
  • berky93
    there is already a NES emulator for jailbroken iphone/ipod touch users. it uses the old layout from the original NES, and supports landscape/protrait views. it works really well too. the only way you'd see a NES emulator in the app store is if nintendo allowed it (unlikely)

    that goes for a SNES emulator, a PS1 emulator, a genesis emulator, a gameboy emulator, a GBA emulator, and a mac (mac 7) emulator, which are all available to jailbroken users
  • brando
    tactile feedback. it wouldn't work because of the lack of tactile feedback.
  • Mike F
    Naw you've got it all wrong, forget the touch screen buttons. Now that people are allowed to code for hardware accessories you can have a "controller dock" to put your phone in that'll have buttons!
    I hope
  • rasone77
    Never going to happen, at least not legally. Nintendo will never give up their licenses so that a competing hand held could play their back catalog. You might get other companies like Konami and Capcom on board, however, Nintendo has many of those games already licensed on their Virtual Console so chances are slim there will ever be anything like this available through the Apple store.
  • Tim
    I currently have NES, SNES, Game Boy/GBC, Game Boy Advance, and Sega Genesis on my iPhone. It's more of a novelty than anything, because it is very difficult to play most games with no buttons. Impresses people though. A game like Pokemon is fun, and I play some old Game Boy games like Balloon Kid with relative ease.

    At one point I had the PlayStation emulator on my iPhone, and put Twisted Metal 2 on it. It's so slow it's unplayable, and the games are large files (something like 700MB) but it was cool/amusing.

    http://www.zodttd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

    If/when this thing finally comes out it changes everything:
    http://www.icontrolpad.com/
  • farra
    You mean like these:

    http://www.zdziarski.com/projects/nesapp/

    http://code.google.com/p/iphonenes/

    It's already out there. Though having used these apps, this setup is still difficult to actually play with. There's no tactile feedback to the buttons, making playing very difficult.
  • NES
    I might be wrong, but I seem to remember the A and B buttons being in the reverse order.
  • Zelda!
  • Antonio
    WTF? There are games that use virtual buttons and virtual dpads already! Some are amazing, like hero of Sparta and real football from gameloft. Does the author of this blog really know anything about iPhone gaming?
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