Xbox Live arcade has opened up some interesting and exciting opportunities for smaller game developers, and we've seen some of our local developers such as Auran (Battlestar Galactica), Sidhe Interactive (Gripshift), and Infinite Interactive (Puzzle Quest) releasing some great games on there. It seems like a great platform and ecosystem for getting games out to gamers and getting them sold.
If you're a developer who's interested in the casual or mobile gaming market, you've no doubt been anticipating the iPhone SDK (software devleoper kit) and roadmap presentation which Apple just held only very recently. In it, Apple discusses the iPhone SDK and development environment, as well as some very interesting things on game development. I've linked the youTube presentations below, but I couldn't help but feel blown away by its potential. It could also be due to Steve job's reality distortion field, so feel free to bring me down to earth if you must.
Some interesting things about the platform include:
1. Apple has built an "apps store" where games and applications can be searched and purchased. It can be accessed easily by every iPhone user.
2. Apple takes care of the hosting and distribution of your games and applications for a fraction of your game price. So, if you sell a game on there, you get 70% of the sales, and they get 30%. No credit card fees for developers.
3. You can charge what ever you like for your game.
4. Free applications and games that developers make will cost then nothing to host at the store, and also doesn't cost the consumer anything to download. I'm sure developers will be using this for demos their games.
5. If you update / bug fix your game, the store will automatically update the game for consumers.
Personally, if I were an indie game developer, I would be jumping on this right away. I would love to hear if anyone is considering working on something for it. I remember a time when people were saying that garage game development was long dead, but the casual and mobile market seems to be the new lease of life for small development groups and is set for even bigger things.
Anyway, enough of my babbling, here are the youtube videos of the presentation. Head on over to number 6 and 7 for the game specific details...