First though, the original tweet (@stevelitchfield) in full was:
"Why is almost EVERY game on the iPhone better than ANY game on S60? Mind you, EVERY photo from my N95 is better than EVERY iPhone photo. 8-)"
I find it fascinating that Apple's iPhone has ended up with such a rich and fabulous gaming scene, while the S60 devices that I'm more familiar with really, really struggle in comparison. And before you ask why I don't just switch to an iPhone full-time, the answer lies in the second half of the tweet. A smartphone is about a lot more than games - from telephony to multitasking to still photos to video capture to navigation - in all these areas, the Nokia N95 and its sisters knock the iPhone into a cocked hat. Which is why I still use the N95, the N82 or the 5800 to this day, for example.
But let's go back to the bit that got retweeted. Is it true? Well, I was exagerating, of course, for effect. Plus I was restricted in the number of characters I could use. But, taken almost at random from some of my IPAL reviews, look at some of these screenshots:
Let's Golf
Glyder
X-Plane: Helicopter
Fastlane Racing
Motochaser
Slotz - a Scelextric sim
Top Gun
Again, these were picked almost at random, there are now, quite literally, hundreds of quality 3D gaming titles on the iPhone and I didn't want to bore you with so many screenshots.
Pitched against these in the Symbian world are a handful of third party titles where developers have bothered to put in a little effort (e.g. Virtual Pool Mobile), a truck load of Java games and the eclectic collection that is the current N-Gage line-up. Now, I'm not saying (despite my exagerated-for-effect tweet above!) that the average quality of an N-Gage game is better than the average quality of an iPhone game - there are plenty of klunkers on both. But the N-Gage and Symbian games scene perhaps numbers a hundred or so (non-Java) titles, whereas there are thousands for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Add in the reasons below why some of these are very, very good, and you end up with a marked contrast.
- The iPhone and iPod hardware has full graphics acceleration, making fast 3D games possible (the above titles run at startling speed) - I've ranted before about Nokia removing graphics acceleration from their hardware. Mutter, mutter.
- Games development is undoubtedly easier for iPhone than for S60, due to Apple's experience in this area - their development kit means the barriers to entry are much lower.
- Apple's App Store distribution model attracts more developers and more development time because there's more of a chance of making money at the end of the day.
- All iPhone and iPod Touch devices have large, bright, touch-enabled displays, whereas the majority of pre-2009 Symbian handsets are key-driven and have small displays that are definitely not optimal for gaming.
Given the above, the supremacy of the iPhone games scene isn't at all surprising. Mind you, the question is whether gaming can make a comeback on the new breed of large-screened touch-enabled Symbian phones. Taking the same bullet points again:
- The Nokia 5800 and N97 are still un-accelerated, but the Samsung i8910 does have full graphics acceleration. One model does not an ecosystem make though...
- Games development (at least at 3D, high performance level) will remain tough on Symbian.
- The new Ovi Store will help monetise what developers produce in similar fashion to the Apple iPhone App Store, so here at least there's some content and some momentum.
- Larger, brighter screens do now seem to be the order of the day, thankfully, so no barrier here.
In short, the current situation's going to get worse before it gets better, from Symbian's point of view.
BUT. There's also the question of does high performance gaming matter very much on mobiles? The iPod Touch has carved out a big niche for itself as a music, media and gaming device, but the core strengths of a smartphone are still probably telephony, Internet, photography, navigation and, yes, entertainment. Whether this last needs to encompass desktop-grade 3D games is debatable.
Nokia, for one, seem quite content to live with a slightly lack-lustre gaming scene on their top-end smartphones, balancing this off against their other strengths. Are they right? Your comments welcomed!
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 25 May 2009 @stevelitchfield on Twitter