Staredit Network

In late May, a Silicon Valley recruiter told GameSpot that it looked like Apple was forming a secret games division. According to the source, former LucasArts technical director Mike Lampell is heading up a group inside the storied iTunes division, and hiring for "C/C++ coders with a 'gaming background.'"

Today, further evidence surfaced that indicates a future version of Apple's ubiquitous iPod player will have gaming functionality. The news came when industry-research firm American Technology Research raised its rating of graphics chipmaker Nvidia from "hold" to "buy."

The reason?

"Based on our analysis, we believe Nvidia is designed into the next-generation video iPod socket at the expense of Broadcom," ATR analyst Satya Chillara told the EE Times, referring to the maker of the graphics processing unit (GPU) in current-generation video ipods. "We believe the Nvidia chip adds 3D graphics functionality in addition to all of the existing features that Broadcom supported with the existing vPod [video iPod]."

Besides the existing video playback, a 3D Nvidia GPU has one other obvious application--gaming. However, it must be emphasized that Apple has not officially announced any iPod with anything more than the rudimentary games on current-generation iPods. Requests for comment on the use of Nvidia chips in iPods had gone unanswered as of press time.



http://www.gamespot.com/news/6154279.html

I don't think that the iPod's interface is really the best for playing games... I mean, I have an iPod mini, and even the "rudimentary games" provided are very awkward and difficult to play.

I agree with voyager, and if they did have game how much are they going to make us pay. 10 bucks for tetris lol haha. Im waiting for the next Window I-Pod wannabe, it has wifi built in lol. And another funny thing is I heard that its CPU is pretty darn strong, and lot of people are asking why. Im pretty sure its going to have to do something with live anywhere, which is just awesome go microsoft, i just noticed how good MSN is lol...

Won't be any fun anyway...

Especially with the controls an iPod has

yea would be a little odd... you have to spinning around and the click... good point... they need alteast like 2 button or something... I hope the new Microsofts ipod wannable player can play xbox live arcade games then i would just be in love with it lol Mortal Combat 3 geometry wars

Have you considered that they may have a different control scheme, or an attatchment for the games?

attatchments eww, no way dude... But I can see Ipod adding in some more buttons just for the games. Apple is going to add some games someday or later, becuase if they dont Microsoft might actually beat them... Having wifi built in you can connect with your pc and etc, also can play xbox live aracde.

I considered them having a different control scheme for games, but I couldn't think of one that wouldn't compromise the simplicity of the iPod's music controls.

A flipdown faceplate like some cellphones have, perhaps?

that would be awesome... but it seems like the cell phones will over run ipod soon :\ apple really needs to start putting itunes in thoes cell phones lol... Cell phones in korea which are like 10 times more advance the ones in US easily has 2.0 mega pixel, and can do bunch of crazy stuff and all runs smooth unlike the us phones. Soon we will probablly even be buying computers from the cell phone store lol haha...

Well i don't see the point. I think they should have stopped at the video ipod. I mean it would be pointless to have the games on it, they would also cost a lot. The Ipod in general.

Well Ipod sells already dropping; however, becuase of there huge ipod says there pc sales went up... But Ipod sales are slowly dropping, they need something new people dont want same old same old. And games pretty much the only thing they did try.

Imagine playing starcraft on an Ipod. Press skip music to self destruct and lose the game .

I think an RTS on an iPod is out of the question...

Touch screen? That'd be awesome.

[sub]I think anything besides maybe a crappy arcadeish game is out of the question.[/sub]

You know what game would work really, really well on an iPod? Bust a move.

...

I HAVE SPOKEN!

Well.. with the wheel, maybe there are good racing games

Blashphemer! Starcraft can still be compatible on any system (specially the DS) and arcades games are fun to like tetris.

that sounds awesome...



meh personally i cant see my self playing SC on a ipod nor DS... its not the same... its harder to multi task... its like playing BFME 2 on the 360... sure they rebuilt the control from bottom up, but RTS is just different...

Even if Ipod had a touch screen unless they change the ipods look like a DS its not really going to work...


Hmm... I think the new "Zume" made by microsoft should be like nitnedo ds lite lol... everything should be the same but no slot for putting in your game lol... DS lite does look sick lol... and having a mp3 player look like that with wifi built in will be awesome, also being able to play xbox live arcade games just wonderful.