The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Anyone on the fence I must say this IPAD is fantastic! We have been down in Florida for about a week house hunting and it has been working like a dream. Even as I sit at the Fort Myers airport waiting on another flight delay back to Chicago (that's every time) this thing is a dream. It's battery life is fantastic as is every other thing about it. Grab one and you will be very happy you did.

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YOU CAN'T HAVE A GREAT TIME WITHOUT A GREAT WATCH.........MAKE IT A BREITLING

The principle advantage I see of my wife's iPad over my MacBook is the battery life. We just flew to Hawaii, and my wife never even lusted after a power plug during either flight. That thing can last like 10 hours between charges. I instinctively charge my MacBook every time I am waiting at airports.

It's basically an awesome netbook. It's a great replacement for a laptop if all you need is basic communication/surfing functionality + multimedia and games.

///M

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." --Dave Barry

I see the UK prices have been released.

£429 for the 16GB wifi only up to £699 for the 64GB wifi + 3G. 3G rates go from £2 per day for 500MB (O2) up to £25 per month for 10GB (Orange).

Don't think I'll bother.

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Hercules

Yeah I saw the pricing structure here too. It's obviously because we're such an affluent country not remotely drowning in national debt or anything. (And yes I AM kidding)

Rip-Off-Britain in full effect.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

I had to fight it off based on G4TV's recommendations.

I bought the original iPhone on opening day, the 3G the same way and will pick up the next version in June as well... but will be waiting on iPad 2.0 before I pull the trigger

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i purchased the wi fi 32gb model the day of release, and honestly i rerally havent found many uses for it, unfortuantely it may be time to put it on the bay, and use the money for another

Do you mean the next version 3gs or 4g? I never did upgrade to the 3gs, there was no point. Just a video camera and picture editing which I would never use either. However, the new one looks awesome and I will def have it on opening day. I just wonder how att is going to support the video conferencing b/c the new phone looks like it will have a videao camera facing both ways.

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SA-Baton White Dial/ProII
Tissot Le Locle

Emphasis added. An iPad is not a gaming platform, at all. There are gaming laptops made, but an iPad is not a replacement for them. An iPad's good for games much in the same way that a Timex is good for telling time. Anyone who's seriously into the hobby will find it sorely lacking.

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[Witty signature here]

iPad is a gaming platform if you take into consideration the success of iPhone as a handheld gaming platform -- as proven by the incredible success of the App Store, especially in the games category.

Of course the iPhone / iPad (since most iPhone apps are already compatible with or are easily ported to the iPad) targets a different category of players than hardcore gamers on an xbox / playstation / PSP/ dedicated gaming PC/Laptop.

Nevertheless, these "casual" iPhone / iPad gamers are forming a very substantial and lucrative target market for gaming software companies.

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a few Pams...

Most people buy iPhone games on a whim, play them a few times, and forget about them. iPhone games do not have huge Internet communities, massive trade shows and events, and worldwide tournaments. Mobile gaming has yet to be more than a footnote in the gaming industry (for several reasons), and the only reason the iPhone's sold more games than before is because there are more iPhones. Successful titles for real gaming systems sell an order of magnitude more copies than successful titles for an iPhone, while being vastly more expensive.

The iPad's a gaming platform in the same way it's also a software development platform, a home theatre system, and data entry workstation, since it has a text editor, speakers, and an on-screen keyboard. In my opinion, the iPad is so far removed from an Xbox 360 as to not deserve being called a gaming platform.

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We'll see how much time is spent at E3 discussing iPad games. "Substantial" compared to what?

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[Witty signature here]

Well, I'm not a gamer so probably shouldn't even carry on a discussion on this issue, but...

On absolute dollar terms, I agree with you of course. I think the gaming industry is like what, a $10 BILLION dollar industry? Huge!

However, I don't quite agree that these "casual" gamers are transitional & not substantial. Speaking personally, I was an early adopter since the very first week iPhone 2G was launched, and up to now I still regularly play games on my current 3GS even though I don't play games on the PC nor even have an Xbox/PS3 (what else are you supposed to do when stuck in doctor's office or post office line?)

I tried googling a little to see if I can give more objective picture on "substantial":

- In the early days, IGN article says that SEGA sold 300,000 Super Monkey Ball in 20 days of the game's launch (more than twice Tiger Woods pga 10 sold by SEGA in TOTAL for the PS3!). Yes, the article did point out that it's not a direct comparison since the SMB is so much cheaper. But this figure gives a good example of the impact of "casual" gamers.

- The iPhone was launched in 2007. Current estimate (since Jan 2010) is that there are more than 75 million iPhone/iTouch users. That's a staggering growth number!

- Over 2 Billion apps have been downloaded -- 20% of which are games. That's 400 Million app games (give or take).

- In 2009 CNET articles estimates $500 million iPhone/iTouch games revenue.

So yes, that's not much compared to $10 B, but considering that the iPhone didn't even exist prior to 2007, that's "substantial" numbers, no?

The problem is that currently most iPhone app models are priced at .99 or free (starting level) & pay as you go content. That's bad news for smaller software companies that do not have "holding power". Though some argues that this trend helps to weed the junk out of the currently 150K apps and growing in the App Store.

But this is where the iPad as a gaming platform is expected to help in bringing back "reasonable" app pricing levels -- with it's much bigger real-estate which can provide a much richer gaming experience ("HD" version in App Store speak).

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a few Pams...

Strictly speaking, the iPad is a platform, and you can play games on it. Therefore, it is a gaming platform. Sure, it has different performance characteristics than a 360, and a different audience, but it does do games. Maybe a better comparison would be to the Nintendo DS.


I think that 5% of the total gaming industry is non-negligible. The point is also that this segment is growing.

Also, one should factor the cost to develop the iPad/iPhone game, which is probably cheaper to do than on an Xbox. The games are cheaper to buy because they are cheaper to make and reach a wide audience. This is just a new paradigm that is interesting to compare to the existing ones.

And all I can say is that I am now totally hooked on Harbor Master!!!!!! Somebody help me!!!!!!

///M

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." --Dave Barry

I am a gamer, which is why I’m reacting the way I am to this.





When you say "strictly speaking," you mean "by my definition." In my opinion, the fact that a device has a peripheral or potential purpose does not make it a “platform” for that activity. I played Tetris on my graphing calculator in high school. Does that make my calculator a gaming platform? An M-4 carbine can shoot down a small, hovering UAV. Does that make it an air defense artillery platform? I can get a $10 Timex at Wal-mart. Is Wal-mart a watch boutique? I just bought some fancy Bowflex dumbells. Is my living room a gym? By my definition, a gaming platform is something that is designed to play games (Xbox, DS, some PCs), not something that also plays games.

Regarding numbers…

The videogame industry did $21 billion in sales in the US alone in 2008.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28682836/
$6 billion in Japan
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21763
$3.8 billion in Germany
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3580736,00.html
$4 billion in the UK
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/32840/UK-games-market-worth-4bn-in-2008

Five percent of the gaming industry? No. Compared to the gaming industry as a whole, it is negligible. $500 million in total sales over a couple years is comparable to the sales of a single large game, like Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4. In other words, God destroying all the iPhones on the planet would have the same effect on the gaming industry as Epic pushing off the release date of Gears of War 3 by a year.

Now, the iPhone may have a substantial portion of the mobile gaming industry, which you hinted at in your arguments. I’ll talk about that next…

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[Witty signature here]

In my opinion (which is all this whole conversation is anyway), iPhone game sales come from people buying the games on a whim because they’re so cheap (the games, not the people). People get the device, are excited about it, and go on a short spree of spending $2-4 each on a bunch of apps, as a couple friends of mine who just got the thing did. That doesn’t make them gamers anymore than my roommate buying some Tae-Bo videos makes her a martial artist. This is the biggest reason I say that the iPad isn’t a gaming platform: Gaming platforms have communities of gamers. The iPad doesn’t. Playing games on your cellphone while you’re on the subway or waiting in an office doesn’t make you a gamer (not that you’re claiming to be).

On what do I base my assessment that iPhone users aren’t gamers? Let’s look at the number of posts on some of the forums on gamepot.com, one of the popular gaming news sites:

• Xbox 360: 1.9 million posts
• PS3: > 2 million posts
• DS: 360,000 posts
• PSP: 238,000 posts
• Mobile gaming (all): 5,419 posts

To put that 5,000 posts figured in perspective, I run a private, members-only forum on the same site. My private forum has been in existence a shorter amount of time than the iPhone has been out. My private forum has 2,600 posts, from a membership of about 30.

Want another example? Let's try IGN. In terms of site traffic, IGN is the biggest gaming news site.

• 360: > 5 million posts
• PS3: 3.5 million posts
• DS: 420,000 posts
• PSP: 240,000 posts
• Mobile gaming: 3,559 posts

I had to dig around to even find the mobile gaming forum on IGN. The last activity on it was from April.
Here’s another way to put 3,559 posts in perspective: How many posts are on this forum? More than that. With so many people buying iPhones/iPads, and so many people buying games for them, why isn’t there more of a community dedicated to iPhone games?

The iPad may sell games, but it’s not creating gamers, nor are gamers buying iPads (to play games on, anyway). Gamers are people who view gaming as a hobby, rather than something you do to kill time. A gaming platform is something that gamers buy to play games, that is, they buy the device with the intention of setting aside time to use it. I think that the vast majority of iPad buyers are not doing this, therefore the device isn’t a gaming platform. It may be a gaming platform for a tiny, tiny minority of the people who buy it, but I don't think that justifies calling the iPad a gaming platform, when that term is also applied to Xbox, Playstation, and portable gaming systems, which are used as gaming platforms by about 100% of the people who buy them.

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Correction: I think the iPad may very well be creating gamers, as people who have one can buy games cheaply and very conveniently. (I think the convience is the primary factor in the sales volume of iPhone apps.) However, it's not creating gamers dedicated to the iPad as a platform. People who get into gaming move on to PC or a console.

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[Witty signature here]

Well, as I said I'm not a gamer. I consider my son playing Plants vs Zombies as "gaming" , and he just LOVES his iPhone (my old 2G), and now completely blown-away with "gaming" on my iPad... But appreciate the interesting insight into serious gamers world!

Back to topic about the iPad in general, this is seriously a fun & satisfying device. Mine is the 64GB non-3G version. Currently there's a power outage where I am, but found out the iPad will tether nicely to MyWi on my jailbroken iPhone!

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a few Pams...