GamerNode: Latest Mobile OS News

Bungie launches new program to help independent de...

Bungie Aerospace, a new project from the creators of the Halo franchise, was hinted at earlier this year. Now the developer has revealed it is a program to help independent developers.

The specific focus will be on mobile and social games. The studios that work under Bungie Aerospace will have creative freedom in addition to resources such as the Bungie.net website and a huge gaming community.

Pete Parsons, Bungie COO, expressed the new possibilities this will create for both his company and independent developers.

"Bungie has always been passionate about making and playing great games, regardless of platform," he said. "Bungie Aerospace will allow us to explore game creation in multiple formats with some amazingly talented teams. Now that we've returned to our roots as an independent studio,...

Minecraft Pocket Edition trailer revealed

Minecraft, the indie success story, has now been shown in action on the Sony Xperia Play phone.

The story surfaced via an image posted on Notch's Twitter and then was fully revealed on the Mojang blog. Minecraft's first offical trailer shows the game running smoothly on the Xperia Play; the phone's touch sensitive pads and face buttons providing what appears to be an intuitive gaming experience. Although there is no further information on other Android or iOS versions, Notch and Mojang are expected to reveal more at E3.

For the few who may still be unaware, Minecraft a sandbox game which lets you mine for precious resources and build with unexpected levels of scale and creativity by yourself or with friends. A mobile version could potentially remove gamers from the confines of their ho...

Angry Birds are headed for Wall Street

In a recent statement, the company behind Angry Birds, Rovio, announced its intentions to seek an initial public offering on the New York Stock exchange.

The Finnish development studio has leaped from obscurity to gamous success with the over 100 million downloads of their quirky slingshot title Angry Birds. The game has reportedly netted Rovio $70 million in App store sales, ad sales, and merchandising, and a recently revealed investment round amounting to $42 million dollars puts the company in a prime position to become publicly traded.

The IPO would make Rovio one of the few European digital-only developers to trade on the NYSE, and perhaps even more rare, one of the only mobile developers to be publicly traded.

"The investment will transform Rovio's growth," claims a statement from the g...

Apple reveals iPad 2

Apple officially unveiled the iPad 2 today. The new tablet is scheduled to come out on March 11.

Along with a slimming design, the iPad 2 comes packed with plenty of upgrades. Among them are a new dual-core CPU that is twice as fast as the original, and graphics performance up to nine times better than the current device.

Some aspects remain unchanged though, including the screen resolution (1024x768), the battery life (approximately 10 hours), and the price. The 16GB WiFi-only model will cost $499 with increasing prices for more upgraded versions.

What does this mean for gamers? With the original iPad's release, Apple promised that gaming would be a primary focus for the device. The company delivered, offering all kinds of games on the new platform. It seems likely that Apple will continue ...

New survey reveals the rising popularity of mobile...

In a press release from PopCap Games, the casual videogame developer announced a mobile gaming survey that was conducted recently. The results reveal that mobile phones are becoming an increasingly popular platform for video games.

The survey, conducted by Information Solutions Group, showed specifically that 33.6 percent of all adults in both the US and UK have played a game on their mobile phones in the past month, categorizing them as "mobile phone gamers."

Further statistics reveal that 84 percent of the aforementioned mobile phone gamers play games on their phone at least once a week, while 78 percent of the group indicated that playing games on their phone had become a regular weekly activity.

Most importantly, the mobile phone has become the gaming platform of choice for those who us...

Chrono Trigger coming to mobile devices

The headline pretty much reveals all we know about the mobile version of Chrono Trigger. The only additional known detail, is that it will be available in Spring 2011.

All that has been released from Square Enix is a teaser site which can be seen by clicking here, or by simply looking at the above image.

Chrono Trigger originally released on the Super Nintendo in 1995 and is considered an RPG masterpiece by many. The game was re-released for the DS in 2008, so this isn't the first time Chrono Trigger could fit in your pocket.

[Square Enix]

Tons of iPhone and iPad games discounted for the h...

EA has marked down seemingly their entire iPhone and iPad library of games, and all down to a dollar.

No one ever complains about the price of iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch games being too expensive, but a sale is a sale, and when this many great games are marked down to $0.99, you have to run in and grab and handful, or in this case a couple gigabyte-fulls.

Highlights include Madden 11, Tetris, Mirror's Edge, Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Sims 3, Battlefield: Bad Company, Scrabble, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, Wolfenstein RPG, Dragon's Lair, Snood, Mass Effect Galaxy, Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly. There are a lot more, and the full iPhone list can be seen by clicking here, while the iPad list can be seen here.

No word on when the sale will be ending, but it's safe to assume that it will be soon, so go ...

Unreal Development Kit extends to iOS soon

According to The Wall Street Journal, the development kit using Epic Games' Unreal Engine, the Unreal Development Kit, will be making its way to the hands of the public this Thursday and will now feature iOS development tools.

UDK has been a free download for some time, but the recent success of Chair Games' Infinity Blade, which uses Unreal on iOS, has likely spurred a wider offering of this high-end, free development program.

The question some may be asking is, "Why not Android?" Epic's co-founder Mark Rein had this to say:

"Apple's App Store is the most vibrant market for mobile gaming. If you're going to make a game for a mobile device, and you want to make the most money, you're nuts not to make it for iOS." 

Apparently the variety of phones using the Android OS and the file-size limit sh...

World of Goo availbale on iPad in 6 days

 World of Goo, from developer 2D Boy, is a gem among the always expanding library of independently developed games. It's been available for the PC and the Wii for some time, but on the 16th of this month it will also be available for the iPad. World of Goo tasks the player with building simple geometric bridge structures in order to deliver balls of goo to their destination. It's the kind of game that is incredibly easy to learn, but will suprise you with it's depth, complexity, and in some cases it's difficulty. The iPad really seems like it could have the perfect interface for the game, allowing the player to touch the screen to build the required bridges. World of Goo for the iPad will cost you $9.99 and will be available for download on Thursday, December 16th.

    [2D Boy]

New Study: Smartphones Dominate Handhelds

It seems Michael Pachter was right.

In Saturday's episode of his GameTrailers.com show "Pach Attack", the Wedbush Analyst stated that the handheld market of video games "was in trouble" and will continue to decline with the rise of the more convenient and, more importantly, free games on the Apple products.

"We are way approaching saturation of the handheld market," Pacter said. "the ubiquity of the IPod touch is cutting into the handheld market...young kids are just as happy playing with an IPod Touch or IPod Nano. The Touch is cool, it plays games, plays music, they're going to put a camera in it and you're going to get all kinds of cool stuff."

The "Phone Gaming Revolution: Do the DS and PSP Stand a Chance?" is a new study from Interpret, a well known technology/media market research firm....

Apple goes to hell with newly approved iRequiem

Apple and Rapid Turtle Games have just announced the approval of their "2D horror themed shooter taking place in hell" called iRequiem and a release date for December 16th on the iPod Touch. The underworld just got a lot more... swipey.

On this touch-screen tour of Satan's realm, you'll be amply supplied with shotguns, crossbows, rocket launchers, and, or course, a healthy helping of dark arcane magic. Judging from the screenshots (you can check 'em out on the game's website), iRequiem looks to combine an almost Resident Evil style inventory system with Gauntlet Legends graphics and Contra side-scrolling shooting. And it's all done with touch screen, so hopefully the interface is as solid as other iPod Touch games.

If you want to read more about the iRequiem's story, check out the press rele...

Get Street Fight IV on iPhone for $7, vote for DLC...

As if the excellent refinement that is Super Street Fighter IV wasn't enough hadoken- and shoryuken-ing for drooling fans, Capcom has announced that in honor of the new release, the iPhone version of Street Fighter IV is on sale for the low, low price of $6.99.

In addition to the 30% price reduction, Capcom, in typical fashion, is opening up the comments section on the Capcom-Unity blog to let the community help decide which characters should be included as future DLC for the iPhone game. On Thursday, five lucky commenters will each receive an app store code good for one free copy.

I have yet to try out the iPhone's jab, strong, and fierce punching ability, but both 30% off and free sound like good prices to me. Head over and make some suggestions, grab the game, and then come back and share...

Dark Void Zero blasting off April 12th on PC and i...

Capcom's retro-tinged tie-in, Dark Void Zero, is finally making the leap from DSi to PC and iPhone. The 8-bit adventure romp which we reviewed favorably will be released on April 12. The game follows Rusty, a test pilot who resides in The Void and is tasked by friend Nikola Tesla to close Portal X. 

The iPhone/iPod Touch version will support OpenFeint for Achievements and Steam on PC for Steam Achievements. Both versions will also now support online leaderboards. The game also now sports a special secret ending that is exclusive to the iPhone/iPod Touch and PC versions.

Street Fighter IV coming to iPhone.....yes, iPhone...

The iPhone/iPod Touch platform is becoming a powerful medium for gaming and more and more big console franchises are making iPhone specific versions of their titles for Apple's little device. We'll just have to place this announcement in the "I never even imagined this would be possible" category. Capcom has announced that Street Fighter IV will be gracing the iPhone platform in March. The iPhone version will be almost a straight port of the console versions, using the same character models, just scalled down to the iPhone's graphical power. Capcom is also promising a large roster of characters, featuring both classic brawlers and newcomers, along with their complete move sets. Ultra combos will also be present and no animations have been cut out of this version.

Virtual controls have alway...

Is Bungie making an iPhone game? Halo?

Here in the videogame industry, everyone loves the occasional (frequent?) dose of rumors and speculaton, especially when it's related to big-name titles and developers.

The latest bit of gaming gossip comes from little-known website allaboutiphone.net, who "have it on very good authority that Bungie is handing out free iPhones to all its employees." Of course this means that the Halo developer is bringing the uber-popular franchise to Apple's beefed-up cellular phone sometime soon.

Possibly.

The assumption is that Bungie wouldn't give such generous gifts without some reason other than to say, "Good job. We appreciate your hard work." Already, a number of big gaming companies have jumped onboard the iPhone bandwagon, making it easy to envision a full-blown three-man race in the handheld are...

Square-Enix's iPod RPG out now

Guess what? Today Square-Enix's iPod tactics RPG is available for purchase in the iTunes store for $5. What's that? You didn't know Square was making an iPod RPG? Yeah, pretty much no one did until less than 24 hours ago.

Titled Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes, the game plays like a simpler version of Tactics, using the click wheel for movement and selecting actions. (Sorry, iPod Touch owners, but this is for click wheels only.)

To take advantage of its unique platform, Square-Enix threw in a feature where your characters are created based on which songs you select. Like Monster Rancher with CDs, each song in your library gives you various class- and level-type characters based on a variety of factors.

Don't expect a huge epic Square-Enix RPG, but who could turn down an offer to get a Mons...

N-Gage lives on as mobile gaming service

Nokia's first (and final) foray in the gaming based cell phone market ended when its oddly shaped device wasn’t the runaway success it hoped it would be. However, the company apparently doesn’t view it as such a big failure that it won't continue using N-Gage as a brand name.

A slew of Nokia phones are compatible with the newly launched N-Gage service, which will eventually feature message boards and chat capability for users. Another interesting thing worth noting is that there is a points system that will be later implemented, but it's anyone's guess as to what they'll be for.

With additional games in the works by a few of the major players in the mobile games space (such as Gameloft and EA), it'll be interesting to see if Nokia can break free from the N-Gage stigma it has bee...

iPhone Spore demonstration

Yesterday, GamerNode introduced you to the new iPhone SDK, and the world of gaming possibilities that is soon to open up on Apple's pocket-sized moneymaking device. Here we have a video of one of the two games that were shown at the conference - a little something called Spore. While it's not a reality-defying byte-for-byte match of the full PC game (if that's what you hoped for, please purchase a return ticket from Fantasy Island), it sure does look pretty good for a mobile title. Check it out:

Harmonix's "Guitar Hero" for the iPod: Phase

Harmonix and Viacom's MTV Games announced yesterday the release of their new music game. No, not Rock Band: Phase. The game can only be played on the video iPod Nano, iPod classic, and the fifth-generation iPod.

Phase will use the music you own, and is played on the click wheel, so you can rhythmically glide and tap to your songs. There are two gameplay modes: QuickSpin, which lets you select a single song to play, or Marathon, which plays five songs of increasing difficulty in a row.

Kasson Crooker of Harmonix revealed that the "...goal with Phase was to create a fundamentally accessible, casual experience for iPod users."

The game isn't going to rock your socks off like a Rock Band or Guitar Hero, but it's a fun little change up that should keep you busy in those boring times like class, wo...