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Nokia N8 vs iPhone vs Android gaming
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Nokia N8 (Symbian^3)
The basics
The Nokia N8 is the first phone to use the brand-new Symbian^3 operating system. And what does a new operating system mean? It means that the Nokia N8 is virtually starting from scratch on the gaming front. However, with a 680MHz processor and 3D accelerator, it’ll be able to muster similar graphical feats to an iPhone (albeit an iPhone 3G rather than an iPhone 4).

symbianminiThe good
Gameloft and EA are signed-up to produce just under a dozen high profile games for the launch of the Nokia N8. These alone should be enough to keep you going to quite a while, and they cover a wide variety of genres, from racing to action adventure. For the full list, check out our story on the announcement.

The bad
There’s a lot of scope for developers to continue porting over their existing iPhone games to Symbian^3, but will they? Our concern is that while the Nokia N8 is a relatively high-end phone, the Symbian^3 platform isn’t heading towards a high-end future. Nokia has undergone a shake-up of its top bods this week, so its strategy may change within weeks, but the phone veteran has talked-up Symbian^4 and MeeGo as its future already. Will future Symbian^3 phones cut out the 3D accelerator capabilities of the Nokia N8, stunting their gaming powers?

The future
Symbian^3’s gaming has started well, but its future is uncertain. When Symbian^3 starts moving to less capable phones, big publishers like Gameloft and EA will start to lose faith in the notion of spending time, energy and, most importantly, money bringing their games to the platform. The key ingredient is success though — if there’s a reasonable profit in it, you can bank on more Symbian^3 games hitting the Ovi Store.

iPhone
The basics
doodleThe App Store opened its virtual doors in July 2008, and in the two years since it has revolutionalised not only mobile gaming, but gaming in general. It’s not so much the games themselves that have changed — the mix of casual feature phone-style games and more upscale handheld console-grade titles remains — but the way we consume them. With thousands of free and 59p games to hand, the notion of the throwaway game has become a reality.

The good
Apple CEO Steve Jobs talks up the magical properties of his company’s products in his keynote speeches, but if there’s one thing magical that Apple has helped create, it’s the App Store. Thousands of developers crowd in, hoping to make a mint by creating the next smash-hit iPhone game — few manage it, but the App Store remains fertile creative ground that has come up with dozens of genial little games. A load of rubbish too, but there are plenty of diamonds in the rough.

The bad
Many developers say that the “race to 59p” that happens on the App Store, the cutting of prices to attract sales in a hugely crowded environment, is very unhealthy for games development. At 59p, a game with all but the tiniest development budget will have to sell hundreds of thousands of copies to make a decent return.

What’s the problem? You might ask, given that the price-dropping behaviour of developers has been going on ever since 2008. Some of the App Store’s biggest players are funded by outside money (venture capitalist gold, if you will) and may be operating at a loss. Not all companies speak out about their finances, so the situation is far from transparent.

The future
The App Store has become too important, too established and too darn popular to leave our lives now. It’s packed with packed with tens of thousands of games for iPhone and iPad, and rumours suggest that it may even make the leap our TVs with an Apple TV update. The future’s bright for iPhone.

Android
The basics
iPhone’s biggest smartphone rival, Android mainly relies on the Android Market for its gaming fix, but that’s not the only place you can get games. It’s more open than an iPhone, but is it better?

The good
androidminiJudging from its Android Market wares alone, Android isn’t a patch on iPhone in gaming terms, but it has its own spread of benefits. With Android 2.2, full Flash 10.1 support means you can play a massive selection of online Flash games — which you’ll never be able to do with an iPhone.

Classic game system emulators are available for Android phones from the Android Market too. GameBoid plays GBA games, Snesoid plays Super Nintendo games, Nesoid plays NES games and GBCoid plays Gameboy Colour games. As long as you can get your hands on the ROM game files themselves, you’ll have a world of classic gaming at your fingertips.

The bad
The Android Market is a mess, and because the paid-for gaming scene is so weak on the platform, most of the big publishers have only released a fraction of their games for Android, and some have dumped the Android Market altogether, only letting you download their games from their own portals.

The paid-for games chart of the Android Market is stagnant place, lacking the vibrancy and activity of the iTunes games chart. For a slew of reasons, Android users simply don’t pay for as many games as their iPhone counterparts. As a result, far less money goes into making Android games, in total.

Fragmentation also holds game development back massively. There are super-powered Androids like the HTC Desire, and much less powerful counterparts like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini, all left to browse the same app store. Are gamers going to be happy when Publisher X’s (we mean in the general sense, not the actual Publisher X, which also exists!) latest game runs like a dog on their phone?

The future
The first thing Google needs to do is to sort out the navigation of the Android Market, which is currently quite terrible, and varies depending on which version of the Android OS you’re using. Discovering apps is difficult and most app prices won’t even be displayed in pounds, but dollars instead, which is off-putting for UK buyers.

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