Simon Jeffery: iPhone “playing Dreamcast quality games”
Posted by Graham. Filed under G, News, iPhone/iPod. Tagged with Dreamcast.
From what we have seen of Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone, it looks very good. But would you say it looks as good as a Dreamcast game?
Well Simon Jeffery, Sega of America President, seems to think so.
In a recent interview with Kotaku, Simon talks about the company’s joy with how the iPhone turned out, and how well it runs games, especially compared to other phones:
“It’s everything that the N-Gage wasn’t as a gaming device,†he said. “Why people play those crappy games on their mobile phones, I’ll never understand. But the iPhone changes that completely. You’re playing Dreamcast quality games on this tiny little device. It’s pretty impressive.
What could this mean for the future of Sega game releases? Well Simon might have given Sega’s next move away, as he continued the interview…
“We’re looking at what we can do on the iPhone… we’re really happy with Super Monkey Ball and it proves that our properties resonate with the casual gaming demographic, so looking back to our Dreamcast content makes sense.â€
Jeffery also confirmed there are “quite a few†SEGA games in development for the iPhone right now, which include some “very cool stuffâ€.
Speaking about the competition from other publishers, he said: “I think by this time next year there will be an absolute cluster [of iPhone games]. Every developer is rushing to do it. It’s cheap, and everyone is going to look to their catalogue to bring stuff over. We have a natural advantage there, but I think it’s a really cool and interesting time for the industry.â€
Well, I still don’t think the iPhone games (that I have seen) are quite up there with Dreamcast titles, but if the Sega bosses think that it can handle such games - then who am I to argue?!
The idea of playing some Dreamcast classics on a real portable device is quite enticing. Now it’s time for the company to put up, or shut up (or at least shut Jeffery up), and release a great line up of Sega classics.
Come on Sega! Put your balls where our mouths are, and bring us Shenmue portable!
[Source: Kotaku Via Electricpig]
[Image from Electricpig]
Comments on this article
There have been 13 responses to this article.
He brings stupidity to the next level.
Kogen
Posted July 17th, 2008 at 11:31 am.
Monkeyball looks nice, but I don’t know about Dreamcast quality.
Also, there is the issue of control. I don’t want to button-mash on a touch-screen. Monkeyball was perfect because it uses the accelerometer, so you just tilt the phone. We’ll see I guess.
emmett The Crab
Posted July 17th, 2008 at 11:39 am.
ZOMG iSEAMAN CONFIRMED!!!1!1!!!11!
Seriously, though, while games like Shenmue and Sonic Adventure probably wouldn’t work that well for the iPhone, I can definitely see potential in a touch-enabled Chu Chu Rocket…
nirniva
Posted July 17th, 2008 at 12:11 pm.
Yeah good points all round there.
I was thinking about how games like Sonic Adventure or like even an old game like Streets of Rage would work on the iPhone - they’d need an onscreen joypad or something surely?
But as nirniva pointed out - other games like Chu Chu could work really well.
It’d be interesting to see what games Sega decides to put on the platform next.
Graham
Posted July 17th, 2008 at 12:22 pm.
Please oh please make iSeaman! I’d love to hear the little trout-sniffer badmouth apple. I Love apple, but still, would be a treat to hear.
Barry
Posted July 17th, 2008 at 1:12 pm.
The main reason for the current wave of iPhone games lacking in the 3D department, is due a lot in part to the SDK’s release cycle.
OpenGL-ES was not added to iPhone for device-testing until about half way through the SDK cycle. Meaning, only apps that had Apple’s direct assistance (Super Monkey Ball), really show what iPhone can do.
And yes, iPhone can handle Dreamcast-grade graphics. The mandate remains at Sega to push that through… and that is what troubles me a lot more.
Remember, this is the company that couldn’t release a steady stream of uber-popular Model 2 games on Dreamcast…
Christopher Price
Posted July 17th, 2008 at 5:00 pm.
While the iPhone has a 620Mhz processor (underclocked to 412Mhz) and 128MB of RAM, I HIGHLY doubt that processing power could handle enough software rendering to compensate the weak GPU to give Dreamcast quality Shenmue II like graphics. I think too many people underrate the Dreamcast’s power and almost everyone overrates the iPhone. Without hardware buttons as well, It would be a pain to even play something as simple as Sonic Adventure. Monkeyball on the Iphone is awesome and I would be ecstatic if they made a touch Chu Chu Rocket on it, but let’s be realistic here people, this isn’t God’s gift to all-in-one devices…
Volvagia
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 6:09 am.
The iPhone would be great for a lot of Dreamcast-era games. Sure, you probably won’t play Sonic Adventure without some additional controller… but there are plenty of DC games that work great with the accelerometer. Heck, so would Daytona USA and Scud Race.
Racing and rail-based shooters work great. I’d pay $20 to have House of The Dead or Virtua Cop 2 on my iPhone. And, those games certainly would run with better-than-Saturn graphics.
Now, you need to realize, megahertz mean absolutely nothing… a 1 GHz Core 2 Duo runs circles around a 2 GHz Pentium 4.
What really matters is how optimized the 3D routines are on the integrated Samsung processor. That remains to be seen… but from what I’ve seen, it can handle scaled-down Dreamcast games.
Christopher Price
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 4:58 pm.
Actually MHz does mean something, but not everything. Your Core 2 duo runs circles around the Pentium for because if it’s larger L2 Cache, faster Front Side Bus, and the fact it has 2 cores and 2 processing threads. The iPhones processor is similar to the Dreamcast’s processor in which they are both single core and have a similar cache. So the main difference is the architecture and the clock speed (MHz.)
Back to my point though, the CPU on the iPhone would have to supplement the weak GPU with a software renderer and that would take more power than the iPhone has.
Volvagia
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 5:41 pm.
I’m well aware of all those things, my point was you can’t compare an iPhone to a Dreamcast by the speeds alone.
That said, I think you’re under-representing the power of iPhone’s GPU. Apple chose that GPU because it can do Quartz Extreme-grade computations. And that certainly puts it in the realm of Dreamcast-grade gaming.
Developers have only had the ability to test OpenGL-ES apps on iPhone directly since late April (when Apple added support to their beta firmware). In that time, Pangea fully ported Mac games that have better-than-Saturn graphics.
iPhone certainly can handle Dreamcast-level games. The problem more is with Sega Mobile… their developers are not iPhone-savvy at all from what I’ve seen. Super Monkey Ball was actually done by an external development studio.
Christopher Price
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 6:29 pm.
Well I don’t think you can say the development team who brought the game to the iPhone aren’t “iPhone savvy”.
From what I have seen, Monkey Ball is the best looking iPhone game out right now (I’ll admit I haven’t gone and checked out every game available - just the few I have seen from random articles)
And apparently it only took them 8 Weeks to make the game with over 100 levels.
I think that’s pretty impressive - especially for a relatively new piece of software.
Graham
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 6:50 pm.
No, the Super Monkey Ball team certainly is iPhone-savvy… they just aren’t Sega employees. Sega needs to continue to staff its internal dev teams.
More and more I see Sega farming out core development tasks to external teams. That’s fine in moderation, Sega seems to be doing it in excess, and that makes them more of a buyout target.
You might want to take a look at Cro Mag Rally, Motoracer, and Crash Nitro Kart. Both have similar graphics and were done in less time than Super Monkey Ball.
But the real gems like Touch Fighter should be out soon :)
Christopher Price
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 7:12 pm.
Screw Apple and their incompatible computers and over-hyped products. They’re the Bungie of the computer world. The only reason why this is good news is because it’s making Sega money.
Wake me when Sega puts out a game for a game system.
Gamerschoice
Posted July 18th, 2008 at 7:49 pm.