Thursday, October 9, 2008

Eternity's Child creator: DS, iPhone can coexist; PSP's days may be numbered


Eternity's Child creator Luc Bernard speaks his mind about the current status of the portable market. See, there's the new PSP-3000 coming out, and then there's the DSi too. The iPhone's also starting to look like a worthy adversary in the portable gaming market, what with its App Store and all - so now, where does the whole industry stand?Satoru Iwata already gave his thoughts on the subject matter - that they're not after iPhone's market share. And who can forget? Even John Koller had a thing to say about the current competition - that the DSi may be successful, but will remain for kiddies under 12.So now, will anyone else give their own two cents? No, duh. Of course someone will pipe in!In an interview with Pocket Gamer, Luc Bernad compares what game development is like for all three platforms. Now I know some of you may or may not agree with some of his points, but just note that these come from his side of things as a developer for the games. These are his opinions from the way he sees things in the portable market.
Pocket Gamer: What tempted you into producing games for the iPhone?
Luc Bernard: When I first picked up the iPhone and played around with it I was struck by just how beautiful a piece of hardware it was. I really love it and I like the fact that you can also carry the games over to the iPod touch, so it's effectively two formats. I don't see it as a rival for the DS so much but I think the PSP's days may be numbered.
What benefits do you see in producing games for the iPhone as opposed to say, the DS or PSP?
To be honest there are no benefits compared to the DS - now the DSi has a 'DS Ware' store on the way it's pretty much the final piece of the puzzle for Nintendo, but the iPhone is without a doubt the best phone to make games for. I believe the DS and iPhone can coexist in the portable market, but like I said I'm not so sure about the PSP's chances.You can read up on the rest of the interview through the Via link below. He talks more about his future games - Eternity's Child (and its sequel), Defend Mechopolis, and an unnamed RPG (supposedly for the iPhone).

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