With the release of BioShock this week for iOS, iPhone and iPad games can truly say the AAA titles have come to the mobile platform. But wait, some will shout, there have already been AAA titles on iOS! Three different Grand Theft Auto games! Dead Space! Mirror’s Edge! That Mass Effect game! What about those?
Most of those games are adaptations of the original console game. They were not full ports, save for the Grand Theft Auto series. Or they were AAA titles from the PlayStation 2 era of video games, which was ten years ago. (The LEGO games, for instance, have been ports of Nintendo DS games, or stripped down versions of their big brother console versions, such as LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.) Big names, but for the most part, different games.
BioShock, by 2K Games, represents the biggest, most current AAA game title to come to iOS to date. But with a price!
I don’t mean the $14.99 price, either, although that is more expensive than most games on iOS. I am talking about the requirements price. You have to either have an iPhone 5 or higher, or an iPad 4 or higher. Notice the lack of iPod Touch?
Should iOS gamers be worried that as new top AAA title games come out, iPod Touch users will be left out? How far back should game developers support older hardware, such as the iPad 3? With a yearly release schedule for new iPads, iPhones, and iOS itself, and the requirements for BioShock, it is starting to look like three years might be the life expectancy of staying current with software/hardware.
