I will never understand why the original software owners aren't monetizing Smartphones like mad.
These games could be ported to iOS and Android with minimal changes and still be succesful.
I tried a Final Fantasy for Android and it was decently playable, I was hoping for Final Fantasy Tactics (which according to Wikipedia was released in 2013 but only for Japan), and very especially for a followup. Square Enix seems to be among the very few that do that, I guess Nintendo doesn' want to cannibalize their mobile platform (they're facing a typical Innovator's Dilemma).
The Final Fantasy Tactics port to iOS is actually quite good. I played it on my iPad, and it seemed almost perfectly suited to a touch interface. The only issue was a slight interaction delay/misfire for when I would press on-screen buttons, but since it's not a twitch game, it's a minor thing.
There's an Android port as well, for $13. That's a great price to play a great game - although I'm not sure how well it plays on a phone.
For the most part, I do agree with your sentiment: the gaming experiences I have read about, seen and experienced on smartphones and tablets tend to not be what I'm looking for. For example, I started playing Bastion on my iPad, but eventually stopped because I really want a gamepad for that kind of game. Same with a lot of the other Square ports.
The whole discussion of phone games reminded me that more and more developers are porting/revamping older games for mobile devices, and some of them aren't busted like the Chrono Trigger PC port. This is honestly pretty excellent. I just recently learned that Ys 1 and 2[0] and a bunch of older Square Enix games[1] like Dragon Quest and Secret of Mana were on Google Play for Android. I'm always surprised when games that are legitimately enjoyable, work properly on a phone/tablet or support some kind of controller, and have zero transactions outside of paying for the game come to mobile. I've been pleasantly surprised by casual games like World of Goo and Greed Corp, plus there's emulation of certain old consoles, but full-size games on mobile are a huge step forward. Haven't tried casting, though I've read it's possible; proper casting would be a game changer.
Nintendo 3DS is continuing to do so well right now I don't think they have a big incentive to port to iOS/Android. I personally was just deciding whether or not to buy a 3DS (my first *DS) and the content available for it but not on mobile was the biggest selling point.
Making the games available on mobile could very well eat into their platform profits. Unless they start failing in that area I don't see them investing in it in the short term.
Although it would obviously be a big cash cow if they chose to either way. But they wouldn't be able to sell games for $39 like they do now on the Nintendo eShop.
Interesting. I know that some games are direct ports of their iPhone versions. It doesn't make sense why they would be worth the money on the iPhone but not on Android.
Porting the mobile port back to PC is one of my biggest complaints with remasters. Final Fantasy on PC went that route and I would honestly rather pay Square $15 for an emulated version then the releases we got.
Nintendo likes to keep it's IP on it's own hardware, but Square Enix (for one) has released several of it's most famous RPGs on Android (most of the Final Fantasies, Chrono Trigger, etc.).
Updates do have to be made to support a touch interface, which is why I think you're request is not a trivial undertaking for most companies. RPGs work, but I can't imagine playing a game like Contra on a touch screen.
I just noticed Chrono Trigger is available for iOS. Haven’t bought it yet but I hope the port is a good one. I also enjoyed FF7 on my iPhone. Glad to see Square is rereleasing titles for mobile.
I would kill for Nintendo to release a few old titles on iOS.
I just don't see how they are going to attract developers to make games for this. The GP2X suffered similar problems.
Sure, this will attract emulator crowd but why do I need a separate device for that when my smartphone will do it (there are even emulators running in javascript/html5 which circumvent any Apple iPhone store issues).
I don't agree. Something like Pokémon from the GameBoy era would run great on a phone, even if it was upgraded with modern graphics[0]. But nobody wants to pay $50 for a mobile game, and I expect Nintendo won't allow it because it would sabotage hardware sales.
I think it’s more that the commodity smartphone technologies were used “laterally” to make a game console that can be played portability. Or, smartphones have been iterating on graphics chipsets since the 3DS was released, so it seems sensible to capitalize on them in a way that a smartphone wasn’t going to.
I think it worked really well for Nintendo too, as they’re very much still a toy company compared to Sony or Microsoft. The budgets for handheld games were likely going to be bigger compared to the DS and 3DS for the next decade, so it makes sense to start to look at them as the same as console game development.
Meh. I always assumed mobile game companies ported to PCs just to squeeze more product out of their creation. You might as well complain about your favorite Game Boy game not being ported to the SNES (with 4 shades of olive green graphics).
That is interesting, there is nothing stopping high budget games from being on phones, its just cultural. Genshin impact can be played on phones, but it is one of very few examples.
The whole Android environment isn't very friendly to games, requiring a lot of work to bring a game to it from iOS:
- tons of resolutions to support
- Tegra, no tegra, OpenGL ES 1.1, OpenGL ES 2 ..
- Google banned any form of paid apps in their first year, with the reason that their payment processing wasn't ready yet. I had two apps removed from the Android Market in 2008 because they were using a form of in-app purchase (powered by PayPal), thus making people get used to free games, powered by google's advertising
- there are TONS of indie developers making good games, who can't sell apps on Google Play because google doesn't allow them to. They keep saying that's because of legal issues, but somehow Apple, Samsung, WebOS had that problem solved... Things got better with the last inclusion of some countries on the allowed list(Poland, India..), but it's still not there
These being said, a lot of money can still be made on Android with games. It just requires an amount of work that most companies aren't comfortable with.
Honestly, i could not disagree with you more. Here's why.
Games that can be played on an iphone/android can almost always be played on a 3ds/vita. Games that can be played on a 3ds/vita can almost never be played on an iphone/android. Is the mobile phone market exploding? Absolutely, but that doesnt mean its taking away from the mobile console market. Frankly it never will. They are two different mediums, there is some overlap, but very little.
This mainly comes down to controls. Because phones are primarily limited to touch screens, so is the kind of games you can effectively play on them.
Phones are great for casual games, but move to anything that require even the smallest amount of control and they start failing bad.
It's touched on in the article, but I think by far the biggest problem with complex games on mobile platforms is the lack of a controller. And secondarily for phones, the tiny screen.
In some bizarro world where every iPhone had Switch-style joycons, these games would probably do very well.
These games could be ported to iOS and Android with minimal changes and still be succesful.
I tried a Final Fantasy for Android and it was decently playable, I was hoping for Final Fantasy Tactics (which according to Wikipedia was released in 2013 but only for Japan), and very especially for a followup. Square Enix seems to be among the very few that do that, I guess Nintendo doesn' want to cannibalize their mobile platform (they're facing a typical Innovator's Dilemma).
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