Gaming Will Still Suck on The Nexus One
Some say it’s the iPhone of phones that are a bit like iPhones. Others say it’s another needless gadget that brings nothing new, costs many hundreds of dollars and is only for rich, smug people who want something interesting to talk about. I kinda want one.
Google’s Nexus One phone has come out of the shadows and shown us all its one big flaw. A problem that continues to hold Android back from having good games. Android, the phone’s operating system, does not allow storage of applications on anything other than the internal memory. Helpfully the internally memory of the Nexus One is double that of the G1, coming in at a whopping 512MB (and at least half of that space may be reserved).
That limit prevents people downloading lots of applications, in turn preventing the sales figures Apple have been basking in. The knock on effect from that is people simply not being bothered to develop many decent games for the platform.
With its beefier processor and nicer screen it sure would be great as a gaming device. But with rubbish battery life; no motion sensors or multi-touch gimmicks; or an ability to download hundreds of applications, sadly it won’t be seeing the kind of adoption its main competitor is currently enjoying.
I still want one though, if just to prank order pizza (see video for joke reference).
Image: CNet
Fuck touchscreen only phones. There are almost as many fun gameplay scenarios for Natal as for a phone without buttons.
I’ve got a G1 and it’s got a motion sensor. It’s a required feature for android phones that want to be endorsed by google. No motion sensor or GPS with compass feature and you’re not allowed to include the android market on the phone and since this thing is sold by Google themselves it’s obviously got those components.
Also, Google said that they would release support for app storage on the SD card soon. It already exists for those with rooted phones but it’s soon official.
Android itself is free to do whatever you want with so they’re not required for android to work but for the Google stuff you need it.
As for battery life it’s not actually that much worse than the iPhone but the Nexus One does have a higher resolution screen and a faster processor so I’d say slightly worse battery life is something I could accept.
You can also actually change it yourself unlike on the iPhone so if you get a bigger battery or carry an extra with you then it’ll last longer obviously.
As for multitouch, the hardware does support it and it’s up to applications themselves to support it or not. Android 2.0 added APIs for multitouch and this thing runs Android 2.1 so they would obviously still be there.
Even my G1 can do multitouch.
The only thing actually holding games back is that the iPhone did it first and that’s the platform most people use so that’s what developers put their time into.
Personally I own a Motorola Droid. There are some decent games out there. Nothing too complex but developers have whipped up some very decent emulators.
On a side note, at least with Android 2.0, applications can store data on the SD card. I’ve got Quake on my phone and it stores all of the pak files on the SD card. Its just that the application itself cannot be stored on the SD card at this point.
I recently got a Hero and frankly Android gaming is a long way off. Beyond Bejewlled or Zuma clones I’ve yet to find anything amazing, and even then the previous two are clones.
It’s nothing compared to the PSP or DS, and even if you’ve got an iPhone I don’t see it replacing your handheld.