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The iPhone has really become on the big contenders to enter the handheld gaming arenas.  More and more developers are joining in and are starting to make the games more complex and enjoyable.  Well, now the evolution of the iPhone gaming experience is taking a giant leap forward as the iControlPad starts its life in the prototype phase – funnily enough the addition transforms your iPhone into a Game Gear looking beast.

The add-on will bring buttons and joypad to the iPhone ensuring the iPhone’s direction towards tackling the likes of the PSP and the DS even more clear.  All the avid gamer needs to worry about when using the piece of hardware is how to clip it on which is said to be simple.  Then away you go with your virtually new toy.

The company behind the device are saying that it will be available for purchase soon and will be priced around the £30 range, however, it’s a shame the company couldn’t have brought it out around the Christmas period to ensure strong sales – they must be kicking themselves.

However, for the new pad to really take off they need to start convincing game developers to start supporting the device, otherwise the unit will just be wasted.  The pad needs to be able to work without having to jailbreak the iPhone and that should be the company’s next course of action.  It doesn’t seem logical for the developers not to support such an item which would almost definitely take the iPhone’s gaming market into the next chapter of its evolution.

Most of the games available for the iPhone have been converted for the format to allow for the touchscreen and motion sensor playing, however by returning the games back to their original methods of button play many people are claiming that the experience would be even better.

However, there is a risk.  The iPhone has built up its name quickly in the gaming community, and this name has been built while the iPhone relied on the touchscreen and motion sensor experience.  It could be that the success of the iPhone and the future success of the iPhone as a gaming platform could all be down to these features and by re-introducing buttons and joypads to the games some users may lose interest.

The company also needs to get Apple onboard and that is proving to be difficult as well.  It would be a shame for this new addition to be released and only work on jailbroken phones.  The company have said that they have source code ready for developers who would be willing to include the ability to use the device into their applications, we will soon find out if they have actually decided to implement these changes or not.

It is third-party attention like this that will move the iPhone out of the mobile gaming market.  The addition looks good and basically brings the player a mix between the DS and the PSP.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 12:41 pm and is filed under iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.