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iPhone closes in on DS, PSP with multitouch games

By Blake Snow
March 06, 2008 14:30 PM PST
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Apple on Thursday paved the way for portable gaming on iPhone announcing the impending arrival of EA's Spore, Sega's Super Monkey Ball, and more.

An iPhone emulator playing SMB3

In addition to the casual games already available on iTunes, console publishers will begin development on multitouch- and accelerometer-controlled games for iPhone, like Spore and Super Monkey Ball which which were both shown today. Other publishers and developers will follow, says Apple.

The company also demoed a game called "Touch Fighter" where players can control a spacecraft by tilting the phone. Additionally, iPhone will soon support OpenGL, OpenAL, and 3dimensional sound, technical mumbo jumbo that game developers like to know.

Although Apple didn't "come out firing" at Nintendo DS and Sony's PSP, it's obvious the iPod maker sees potential in handheld games other than those found on mobile phones and mp3 players.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with this, though for some reason, I suspect Apple only wants part of this action as opposed to the pie both Nintendo and Sony currently own.