According to Fishlabs honcho Michael Schade, the iPhone 3G S can do graphics better than Sony’s latest PSP. That’s right, the Jesus Phone can trump the PSP at its own game, apart from the thousand other smartphone talents it can do.
That pronouncement, of course, stems from the hardware components Apple has fitted the latest iteration of its iPhone with. Apart from coming with an undeniably faster 600MHz processor (as opposed to the PSP Go’s 412MHz CPU), the 3G S offers native hardware support for Open GL ES 2.0, the shading language that allows devices to render full 3D graphics. Put simply, the latest version of the handheld gives it the ability to become a full-fledged gaming platform.
Of course, just because the phone packs hardware that can render better displays than the PSP, it doesn’t mean we’ll actually be seeing titles doing that. With gaming still considered an accessory feature on the iPhone, there’s just no assurance game studios can actually sell $40 epics the way they do on the PSP. In fact, the majority of games on the handset consist largely of casual titles intended as a side distraction instead of a full-featured experience.
In the same vein, Schade was quick to point out the kind of investment studios will need to make in order to code games for ES 2.0, which will all have to start from scratch. Worse, those games won’t be compatible with the iPhone 3G, which uses the older Open GL ES 1.1. Unless we see 3G S adoption surpass the 3G (unlikely, since AT&T is now pimping the second-gen iPhone for only $99 with a two-year contract), it may take a while before we see efforts on that end.
Case in point: the upcoming Doom Resurrection for the iPhone. While developer Id Software, no doubt, has been long aware of the 3G S’ new shader technology, they opted to look the other way and create the title for 1.1 instead. Game makers, after all, still have to think about the profits and, in the end, you’ll make more money supporting the widest available technology.
Still, you can’t help but be amazed at the iPhone’s evolution as a future gaming platform. There’s no doubt in my mind that in a year or two, we’ll see it as a third major player in the handheld console market. Sony and Nintendo better be ready to respond.
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