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Tom's Hardware Interviews Four Android And iOS Game Developers
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1. What Does The Future Look Like For Mobile Game Development?

How did we get—here? It might have been difficult to predict the sudden popularity of smartphones and tablets five years ago. Today, however, they're snatching all of the headlines, generating buzz for the cool things they can do in increasingly convenient form factors. Can we expect these diminutive devices to displace our PCs any time soon? Most enthusiasts insist not, but it'd be hard to ignore the fantastic sales and consequent growth of smartphones and tablets.

Indeed, for a great many tasks, PCs still reign supreme. But recent embedded processor and graphics advancements are at least blurring the performance line that previously separated tablets and notebooks. Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 and Qualcomm’s fourth-generation Snapdragon are two mobile "super-processors" that emerged over the last year. And with Microsoft’s recent announcement that Windows 8 would support the ARM instruction set, the wheels of change are unquestionably in motion.

With change comes new surprises to look forward to. More muscular smartphone and tablet hardware is enabling software developers to write more demanding (and visually appealing) games. The results suggest that dedicated gaming handhelds could eventually be replaced by more general-purpose mobile devices—and challenge the market dominance of console games.

Asus Transformer Prime: Console-esque Gaming

Some of the more recently-released mobile games are already starting to remind of us of visuals we remember from desktop PC gaming a decade ago, with titles like Riptide GP and Shadowgun both introducing cool effects that we hadn't previously seen from mobile devices. Nvidia recently "put console games on notice," explaining to us the tremendous amount of work that went into getting some of the current-gen titles to market. And it'd indeed appear that the mobile gaming industry is poised for explosive growth. Already, enthusiasts are connecting Xbox 360 controllers to their Transformer Primes, kicking off the move from dedicated console equipment to smartphones and tablets that can really game.

The success of gaming on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone 7 must overcome notable challenges, though. Operating system fragmentation, hardware feature set and compatibility issues, and non-upgradable device drivers cause software developers to feel as through they're aiming at an always-moving target. Can mobile gaming transcend the barriers in its way, competing more aggressively against consoles, and ultimately dominate the industry? We get the inside scoop from four leading mobile game developers, including Vector Unit (developers of Riptide GP and Shine Runner), Fishlabs (developers of the Galaxy of Fire series), Mediocre (developers of Sprinkle), and Madfinger (developers of Samurai and Shadowgun).

2. Apple Vs. Google Vs. Microsoft: Which Rules Mobile Gaming?

Tom's Hardware: The mobile operating system landscape is still in a state of flux. While the primary two players are iOS and Android, we’ve seen Microsoft fighting for traction with cheaper WP7-based phones.

As developers trying to attract a broad audience, what challenges do you face in delivering cross-platform games? What are the advantages or disadvantages of each ecosystem (does one OS have features that make it more attractive than the others)?

Fishlabs: iOS is the most attractive platform at the moment. Sure, due to new generations of devices, a certain kind of fragmentation has found its way into that platform (for example, from iPhone 3GS to iPhone 4 to the new iPad), but all-in-all, it is still a very consistent ecosystem. From a developer standpoint, the common OS and GPU architecture means texture compression is nearly the same for all iOS devices, making this platform particularly appealing for game development.

Android is a bit more tricky. On the one hand, the enormous install base of Android-based smartphones and tablets makes it almost impossible for us to deny that platform completely. But on the other hand, the huge fragmentation of the Android market (with dozens of manufacturers producing hundreds of devices with a myriad of different hardware specifications) and its high level of software piracy make it pretty hard for us to release a title on Android and still turn in a reasonable profit. We hope that this will change, at least to some extent, with our first free to play title out.

Last but not least is WP7. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s current OS does not have that much relevance for us at the moment because it doesn’t support native game development. Making our titles available for WP7 would require us to fully convert them from native code to managed code, and that would mean quite a lot of additional effort. If you consider the rather modest sales of WP7-based smartphones and Microsoft’s announcement that it will finally allow for native code support in WP8, it appears to us that it would be better not to optimize our games for WP7. Instead, we’ll wait until its successor comes out.

Madfinger: Our goal is to get our games to as many people as possible, so it is in our best interest to support as many platforms as possible. This is why we chose Unity 3D as our technology. As a result, we can port our games to other platforms very easily. On the other hand, we cannot support platforms that are not supported by Unity 3D. For example, we cannot support WP7 because Unity requires native C++ code. We hope this will change with WP8.

Regarding the challenges that we are facing, the biggest problem is the fragmentation of Android versions and device types, and thus increasing testing and polishing. On the other hand, we observe the biggest audience for hardcore games mainly among the Android users. Apple, to the contrary, does not provide developers with dev kits or information before it releases updates and new devices, meaning developers cannot get ready for this change or develop apps considering what will come next.

Mediocre: As long as we can use a common programming language, cross-platform development is manageable. In our case, we use C++ for the actual game and use custom setup code for the two platforms. Audio requires two different implementations, as there is no OpenAL interface on Android. Since we are a small team and do all the work in-house, we strongly doubt we will support WP7 phones until they can compile and run native C++ code. Supporting a different audio or graphics API is no big deal, but rewriting and then maintaining two separate branches of all the game code and support libraries is just too much work.

Vector Unit: All of our games are built natively with C++, with just a thin layer of objective C or Java wrapped around them. Our Vector engine is cross-platform, so it’s relatively simple at this point to generate builds for multiple ecosystems, and it works well for us. Our games, so far, have sold similarly well on Android and iOS.

With that said, the challenge on Android is support. Fragmentation is an issue, and supporting multiple hardware specs can be a pain. Support and compatibility testing on iOS is much easier, but then the marketplace is much more crowded and competitive, so there are trade-offs.

Tom's Hardware: What can Apple, Google, and Microsoft do to help convince developers that they have the operating system that deserves the most attention? Are marketing considerations and budgetary constraints forcing mobile game developers to limit their efforts to Android and iOS only? Do you find that a user of one platform is more likely to purchase games than others, or is it simply a matter of how many devices are out there? Do you have other considerations (like an app approval process)?

Fishlabs: The crucial point is not the install base of a certain platform, but how much money you can make on that platform. Take the Blackberry Playbook, for instance. The addressable audience is tiny compared to iOS and Android. However, Playbook users seem to be willing to pay for content, and Blackberry World is a robust store that even supports operator billing. RIM claims that 13% of its developers make more than $100 000.

In combination with the fact that porting from iOS is fairly easy if you have a C++-based engine running your game, we expect Blackberry to become the second attractive platform next to iOS, at least for premium developers. If Microsoft is able to establish a seamless experience with Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, combined with tight store integration featuring proper billing and quality-focused content offering, this will also make a very tempting proposition for developers. This is where Google still has a lot of homework to do. Despite its enormous install base, Google Play is far from perfect. That is also the main reason why many OEMs have launched their own app stores, fragmenting Android even further.

Madfinger: Developers support ecosystems that generate the most money at least cost. Even though we love our work, as much as any other company we have to consider profit. Every company has to pay employees, bills, and so on. Thanks to our multi-platform engine, we are able to support iOS, Android, and hopefully in the future WP8 without having to invest a significant amount of money. Regarding the process: the simpler the better. We are small company, and every extra hour spent adapting our game to other devices or platforms delays the release of our next game.

Mediocre: We originally planned to release our game on iOS-only. Everybody we talked to said the same thing: an Android port would not pay off. However, we strongly believed in Android as a platform, and in retrospect, that turned out to be a good investment. There are many big-name games being released simultaneously on Android and iOS now, and it is definitely considered a proven market. Numbers definitely count, but I think you have to trust your gut feeling too. It is easier to get visibility in less crowded markets, which is an important consideration.

Vector Unit: Discovery is the single biggest issue in the various app stores. Currently, all the app markets base most of their discoverability around rankings, which is unfortunate. That is not how people generally consume other entertainment products, like movies or books. They find what interests them, and disregard whether it is the #3 movie or best-selling book. I think developing a rich system around discovery and recommendation would be a huge attractor for developers, for any platform.

Ultimately, it comes down to audience size and activity—both Android and Apple are similar this way. We currently do not support WP7 for two reasons: the WP7 market is much smaller, and it does not support apps written in native code.

3. What Does It Take To Be Profitable Selling Mobile Games?

Tom's Hardware: Big-name console and PC game developers enjoy hefty budgets, large teams, and long development cycles to create the next market hit. As a result, big sales numbers are needed for a title to be considered successful. Recently, EA CEO John Riccitiello said Star Wars: The Old Republic needs 500 000 paying subscribers to break even and 1 million subscribers to be profitable.

What are the economics of mobile game development? What is the revenue share of distribution networks like the Apple App store or Google Play? Tell us about the size of your distribution teams, your development cycles, and your break-even and profitability targets for a successful game in the mobile market.

Fishlabs: As the processing and rendering power of tablets and smartphones increases, so do the dev budgets for mobile games. The biggest premium IPs already have budgets within the seven-digit range. Both Apple and Google use a 70/30 rev-share model and take a cut of 30% of both app sales and in-app-purchases. Fishlabs currently employs 60 full-time-employees, and the current development cycle for high-quality games is one to two years.

One thing that distinguishes us from the PC and console space is the fact that we have to anticipate the capabilities of the next generation of smartphones and tablets in order to be able to deliver a perfect build of our game by the time a new device hits the market. If you take into consideration that the mobile market is constantly in motion, introducing new innovations every six months, you might understand that it is not always an easy to be in front of the next trend and one step ahead of the competition.

The aim we always want to achieve with our games is the creation of a highly immersive gaming experience that can be enjoyed on-the-go. Of course, another goal is for the title to be commercially successful, preferably to an extent that enables the company to grow organically and make even bigger games. Depending on the dev budget and business model (pay-per-download on the one hand or free-to-play with in-app purchasing on the other) you usually need to sell several hundred thousand copies to break even.

Madfinger: Our company started with four employees a year and a half ago, and today we employ 16 people. Usually, we try to develop a game using fewer than ten people over a period no longer than eight months, and that helps to minimize our budget. A game developed for mobile platforms with the same budget as a console game cannot be successful, and cannot be profitable. Based on our experience, a mobile game is successful only if it pays for the development of a new game.

We are lucky because we have talented people in our team. Development of new game does not cost as much as it does on the console or PC side, and our games become profitable much faster. A $6 title becomes profitable after around 100 000 copies sold.

Google Play (formerly Google Marketplace)Google Play (formerly Google Marketplace)

Mediocre: The mobile market is very opportunistic. With the vast majority of all sales representing only a few hundred titles, it is hard to break even if you are not one of those titles. We are a staff of only two people, so we can keep the costs down, but we still need to sell hundreds of thousands of copies of a game to cover the development cost. We focus on high-quality games and spent nine months developing Sprinkle, which is quite a lot for a casual game. I think many developers want to spread their risk by making a large number of simpler games and hope for one of them to take off. We strongly believe that is a bad idea for both developers and consumers.

Vector Unit: Most of the app markets take a 30% cut, with 70% going to the developers. Our strategy generally is to keep our costs down without hurting the overall polish of the gaming experience. We have a three-person team, and our budgets are typically in the range of $100 000 or less. Therefore, we have to sell about 65 000 units of a $2 game to break even—but even that is not easy. By the way, there was a great survey put out by Owen Goss last year that went into some detail about these numbers.

4. Which Hardware Considerations Matter During Development?

Tom's Hardware: Even game developers trying simplify their business by focusing on a single operating system still struggle with supporting updates and different hardware specifications. For example, Android comes in several versions and supports an array of platforms including OMAP, Snapdragon, Tegra, and Exynos, with Intel and Huawei soon to follow. How do you cope with different hardware and software variables?

Fishlabs: The Android platform is characterized by a very high level of fragmentation. For us, this is particularly relevant because we have to make sure that the texture compression of our titles is always optimized for and adjusted to the capabilities of the devices in question. For the upcoming All Android version of Galaxy on Fire 2, for example, we had to create half a dozen individual texture sets in order to make sure that the game runs as smoothly as possible on each of the 700+ supported devices. If all goes as planned, the app will recognize the corresponding device’s GPU automatically and download the required texture assets during the installation process.

The CPU, on the other hand, does not yet play as important of a role for us because all our games are GPU-bound. That is to say the GPU limits our titles’ performances. So far, all Fishlabs games perform smoothly on single-core devices as well.

Madfinger: Thanks to our Unity 3D engine, different architectures and OS version do not need much consideration. We can pay more attention to the game itself, instead of the hardware. We focus on Tegra devices because Nvidia provides us with a great support. Moreover, all Tegra devices have similar specifications, so we use it as our main development platform right now.

Mediocre: We originally ported Sprinkle for the Tegra platform. After a couple of months, during which we had a chance to get a feel for the Android market, we decided to do a general port. We restricted ourselves to Android 2.3 and ARM v7 to simplify the development, and block-out devices that are not powerful enough to run the complex fluid simulation in Sprinkle.

We set up a beta program where anyone could apply, and we selected about 50 people with different devices to try the game and report issues. The whole process was smooth, and within a few weeks, Sprinkle was stable on most devices. Hardware manufacturers typically make it sound like their product is very different from the competition, while in reality they are all actually similar from a developer point of view.

Riptide GP (with Tegra 3 optimizations)Riptide GP (with Tegra 3 optimizations)

Vector Unit: Our approach is to get a representative sampling of each platform in-house for testing, cover as many cases as we can, and then respond to specific issues raised by users when new devices come out.

Personally, I think any hardware like Tegra that supports DirectX textures is easiest to work with. PowerVR has many restrictions (like square textures for compression, as an example). But ultimately, they are all fairly similar.

Tom's Hardware: Current mobile benchmarks used to identify the best-performing platforms do not always utilize the latest 3D graphics technologies. How important is it to use the latest 3D capabilities to balance realism and performance in your games? 

ShadowgunShadowgun

Fishlabs: Imagination Technology’s PowerVR is one of the best architectures on the market because its overall texture compression is very good. There are still minor issues with the processing of normal maps, but apart from that, the visual quality of PowerVR-encoded textures is among the best you’re going to find, especially in relation to the file size.

GPU-wise, Adreno and Mali are both quite powerful. The same is also valid for Tegra 2, which supports DXT texture compression that's well-suited for the creation of state-of-the-art visuals in PC or console quality. Let’s wait and see if Tegra 3 will be able to up the ante even further.

Madfinger: There is really no impetus to support the latest graphic techniques. Remember, there is always going to be a lag between standards and actual implementation. We know this from our experience on the desktop, but we have been able to find various different ways to render better graphics.

Mediocre: It is hard to say. However, generally, performance tends to depend more on screen resolution and the graphics driver to some extent, rather than which chip or technology being used. As a disclaimer, we haven't done any side-by-side benchmarks between all of the various SoCs.

Vector Unit: All of our games are somewhat high-end 3D games, and for us fill rate and GPU performance are usually the gating factors. We almost never have issues on the CPU side, even with dual-core or fast single-core devices. Quad-core is great, but what we are really looking for, going forward, is increases in GPU performance.

5. Do Multi-Core CPUs And Extra RAM Make A Difference?

Tom's Hardware: At Mobile World Congress 2012, both Intel and Qualcomm stressed that multi-core architecture should not be the focus for end-users, saying more cores are not always better. That discussion revolved around the minimum hardware specs necessary to deliver a smooth smartphone and tablet experience, largely ignoring what it takes to enable compelling mobile gaming.

What is your take on the different hardware platforms for mobile gaming? Is it better to go with a quad-core CPU over a dual-core processor running faster, or is the GPU more important?

Fishlabs: For us, multi-core CPUs aren’t that important at the moment because our games are currently all GPU-bound and not CPU-bound. However, this might change in the future when more physics-driven gameplay makes its way into mobile. But right now, we’re not racking our brains about CPU-related matters, such as thread management or more elaborate in-game physics.

Madfinger: We support multi-core SoCs. For example, with Tegra 3 we are able to take advantage of each available core to deliver smoother performance. On the other hand, problems do occur when a device has only a few cores but a faster GPU. Of course, we would be ecstatic if all devices had the same number of cores, running at the same speed and resolution. It would make programming a whole lot easier. Unfortunately, this is simply not going to happen.

Mediocre: We designed Sprinkle to use multiple cores from the beginning. The fluid simulation runs in parallel with game logic and rendering. On Tegra 3, we also added smoke simulation on a separate thread, so it actually uses all four cores. For most purposes, I think a fast dual-core processor is better than a lower clocked quad-core chip—but that depends only on the mindset of programmers. If we want to move forward it is inevitable to go more parallel, so I would like to advocate quad-core and beyond. It is just something those of us on the software side will have to master.

Vector Unit: I do not really see more cores—at least more than four—as the direction the industry needs to go. For games, it is all about improving graphics performance and keeping the power profile as small as possible. We do use multi-threading extensively throughout our games. For example, in Riptide GP, we might have water physics calculations running on one core, rigid body physics and AI on another core, and so on.

Tom's Hardware: Many of the mobile games available today on iOS, Android, and WP7 still look like something out of the Super Nintendo era, with cartoonish characters, chunky 3D textures, and minimal anti-aliasing. However, we have also seen a few mobile games that deliver impressive quality almost matching PC games like World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Do local memory constraints of today's mobile devices hamper your ability to provide a top-quality gaming experience? What can you do to mitigate the performance impact of insufficient RAM? Is it simply a matter of reducing image detail?

Galaxy of Fire 2 HDGalaxy of Fire 2 HD

Fishlabs: State-of-the-art 3D graphics and console-quality visuals are absolutely crucial to Fishlabs and hence we’ll always try our very best to take full advantage of the latest generation of mobile devices’ ever-growing hardware capabilities and make our games look as stunning as possible. Thanks to elaborate 3D models, hi-res textures and sophisticated OpenGL 2.0 shaders, the graphics of the A5-optimized Galaxy on Fire 2 HD for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 do already come pretty close to those of today’s leading PC or console titles. And we still haven’t reached our peak yet. Due to its extremely short innovation cycles, mobile is developing and progressing way faster than any other gaming platform in the world. And the more complex and ambitious mobile games become, the more important it will be for the respective devices to be well-equipped in terms of RAM. At the moment, Galaxy on Fire 2 HD does still run pretty smoothly with as little as 256 MB of RAM. But once we’ve launch Galaxy of Fire 3, this will surely change and greater RAM availability will be all the more necessary.

Madfinger: We are trying hard to provide the best gaming experience possible—regardless of device—whether it is iPhone 3G, iPad, or Tegra 3. In our experience, it is definitely not about scaling down details. That is the wrong approach. A good game developer must always find a way to provide excellent quality and performance—even if there are RAM and other hardware limitations. Developers must discover new pipelines or techniques to deal with limits, yet achieve good results. We hope that, with Shadowgun and Samurai, we proved it is possible.

Mediocre: When it comes to memory, most modern phones already have more than the current-generation gaming consoles, so I do not see that as a problem at all. GPUs are still one or two generations apart, but there is not much stopping us from doing console-quality games on mobile platforms today. I think the casual gaming genre has developed its own aesthetics of sorts, and casual gamers are seeking mobile games that have a particular look. I am hoping for that to change, since there is no reason that casual mobile games could not benefit from the cool graphics and top-notch visual effects of console games.

Vector Unit: RAM is not the limiting issue, at least not for us. For the kinds of effects that people associate with next-gen console hardware (stuff like real-time shadows, normal mapping, and anti-aliasing) you need fill rate. Lots and lots of fill rate. I am confident mobile hardware will deliver the kinds of 3D graphics experiences that you see on consoles today before very long. But it may still be a couple of years out.

6. Do HD Resolutions Really Matter To Gaming?

Toms' Hardware: The iPad 3 release created an immediacy around the adoption of higher-resolution tablet displays. What is the impact of this new hi-res trend on the mobile gaming industry, and will this compel your company to release games in a separate “HD” version accommodate the iPad 3 and emerging high-resolution tablets?

Fishlabs: When platforms emerge, we often see suffixes like HD to differentiate new products from standard offerings targeted to the early adopters. However, mobile technology is evolving so incredibly fast that we believe, in 2013, any game that is not HD won’t be able to succeed even as a mass-market title. Consequently, HD won’t be a marketing message anymore.

Of course, as there will still be many millions of non-HD devices in use, we will release our upcoming titles as a single binary supporting non-HD, HD, and even beyond-HD-capable devices. It is one game for all and the level of fidelity will only depend on the player’s hardware. Just like it is in PC gaming today.

Madfinger: Honestly, we are not that excited about higher-resolution displays. In the case of the new iPad, we would be better off utilizing its more powerful GPU for new and more exiting effects, rather than deal with more pixels on the screen. In our opinion, releases of an app in an HD version are simply a matter of money, a way to boost income—and our company prefers universal applications. Anyway, the trend of speeding up of hardware results in boosting people's expectations of better graphics in general, and that means much work for mobile device apps developers.

SprinkleSprinkle

Mediocre: I have personally never been that keen on higher resolutions in games. For e-reading and Web browsing, it is obviously a big win. But in an action game where everything is moving, I doubt anyone will even notice. I am much more impressed by a game running at 60 frames per second on a low-res display than a game running at 20 frames per second at “beyond-HD resolution”.

Vector Unit: For 3D games at least, the whole HD thing is complete hokum. The iPhone 4S is a much more capable piece of hardware than the original iPad, but for some reason there is this idea that because the screen is bigger, consumers should pay more for an HD version of a game. I think (and I hope) that the whole thing eventually goes away. When you buy a PC game like Skyrim, you do not pay more for playing on a high-resolution device than you do on a low-res device. It should be the same way with phones and tablets.

Most of our games are targeted at higher-end devices, so we typically just make one set of textures and assets targeted at 720p resolution (the high-res standard on Android), then scale down some textures and such for lower-end devices. Again, the problem with higher resolution is fill rate—but we are okay as long as the GPUs are scaled-up to match.

7. What Are Your Favorite Mobile Platforms And Games?

Tom's Hardware: Porting Android to x86 should allow developers to take advantage of SSE-based optimizations. This assumes software stands to benefit from “single-instruction, multiple-data” SIMD optimizations, which is technology also offered by ARM’s NEON technology. Are you currently using NEON to achieve performance benefits for mobile gaming?

Fishlabs: Since NEON is a CPU-optimized solution for writing high-performance code, it is not that interesting for us as long as our games are rather GPU-bound. However, there’s a good chance that our upcoming titles will require stronger CPU performance, especially when there are more vector-based algorithms involved. Once that's the case, NEON will surely be the best way to go in order to relieve the CPU and optimize the respective device’s performance.

Madfinger: Because we rely on our Unity engine, we do not need to take care of this stuff. Unity does it instead of us. All we can say is that we use NEON for fluid simulation optimization in Shadowgun .

Mediocre: We do not currently use NEON optimizations at all. It could be interesting to use SSE here and there, but these days you typically get more bang-for-the-buck spending that time parallelizing code or rearranging for cache utilization.

Tom's Hardware: On what platforms and devices do you test your games before publishing them? Which smartphones and/or tablets do you personally own, what game titles are your favorites, and what computing platform do you use for development?

Fishlabs: Since it is mandatory for us to make our products absolutely top-notch in every aspect, we test our games extensively on all supported devices. While the QA is done by our own developers on one hand and a number of external game testers on the other, we have now established an in-house QA department that prepares for our ongoing battle against glitches, bugs, and other problems. The computers we use for programming and graphics design vary. While most of our engineers work with latest generation Macs, our artists prefer to work on PCs, particularly since 3ds Max is our primary 3D design tool not available on Mac.

As for the devices I personally own, I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad. Game-wise, my all-time favorite is the Heroes of Might and Magic series. I’m particularly fond of the third installment of that saga! And I’m also a big fan of old-school shooters like Doom, Quake, Hexen, and Max Payne. Another title I enjoyed a lot was Dragon Age: Origins.

Transformer PrimeTransformer Prime

Madfinger: Personally, I own an iPhone, an iPad, and an Asus Transformer Prime. Of course, we have to play new games to keep an eye on our competition and keep up with the latest trends. I prefer hardcore games like Dead Space, FIFA 2012, Ravensword: The Fallen King, and Galaxy on Fire 2 HD.

For Apple devices, we test devices with all of the various iOS versions we intend to support. As far as Android devices are concerned, we test only the main ones—that means about 15 devices total. Usually, the problem with some mobile devices comes much later after game publication, so we have to maintain our testing protocol for these devices down the stretch, as well.

Mediocre: We have about a dozen devices internally for testing, and we used a beta program to cover more devices during our general Android port. I personally use an iPhone 4S and the original iPad. Henrik uses a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I mostly use my Windows machine for development, since I prefer Visual Studio as a development environment. So, Sprinkle was created on Windows and continuously ported to iOS and Android. The Windows machine is a high-end quad-core laptop. Neither of us plays many games, unfortunately. I can enjoy casual games like Tiny Wings occasionally, and I recently spent some time with Tower Defense games.

Vector Unit: On iOS we test using an iPad, iPad2, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS. On Android, we have a range of devices we test on (about 10), with an HTC EVO being our low end and a Transformer Prime being our high end.

8. Will Mobile Devices Overtake Gaming Consoles?

Tom's Hardware: Some people believe that mobile games for smartphones and tablets are competing directly with console games—and after visiting Nvidia’s booth at CES and Mobile World Congress, it's easy to understand why. As mobile game developers, do you feel that you are producing a new medium of entertainment that will capture market share from console games?

Fishlabs: We’re absolutely certain that mobile bears more potential for gaming than any other platform out there. Eight years ago, people called us delusional when we told them that Fishlabs was about to bring state-of-the-art 3D action games to the small displays of their cellphones, even at 128x128 resolution. Back then, mobile games had not even reached the level of a PlayStation in terms of graphics and game play. Today, however, the most ambitious mobile games have already closed in on the best titles for Sony's PlayStation 3 and Microsoft's Xbox 360. In the past five years, the mobile industry has made progress for which the console developers needed 20 years and more.

These days, there are already more iPhones and iPads in circulation, which are used as gaming devices, than there are PlayStations and Xboxes on the market combined! And the most successful games on the App Store do easily generate tens of millions of downloads on launch weekend alone. According to Flurry, the combined install base of iOS and Android will add up to more than one billion activated devices by the end of 2012. Consider that more than 50% of the 40+ billion apps already downloaded from the App Store and Google Play are games. With that in mind, it's easy to see how omnipresent mobile games are in this day and age, and the development is still fully underway and an end is not in sight!

Madfinger: We do our best to prove that it is possible to develop a game for mobile phones and tablets that can compete with console games in areas that matter: visual effects and entertainment. On the other hand, as long as mobile games do not earn as much as console games, we will not be able to compete on par. Simply put, a game developer dedicated to mobile titles cannot compete with a company focused on console games in budget nor in profit. Development of top console games takes quite a few years and even bigger budgets, but there again they are much more profitable.

Mediocre: Mobile games are quickly approaching the quality of console titles, but still lacking for content. This might not be surprising, considering the typical price difference. We are mostly interested in the casual gaming genre—, which I would consider a new medium for entertainment since it appeals to people that didn't even know they could enjoy games, or people that used to play games but no longer feel they have the time. Challenges in game design and game mechanics are quite different from the traditional core gaming market.

Vertex Unit: I do not think mobile games are competing with console games. After all, you can buy 50 mobiles games for the price of a single console game. However, I do think that mobile devices are competing with dedicated gaming handhelds like the Vita and the 3DS. In fact, I think this year will be remembered as the death of those handhelds. It will take a few years before tablets can compete directly with consoles, but they are getting there.

I do think mobile games offer something different to consumers. The best mobile games offer experiences that are light and easy to get into (and out of) without making players feel like they have to spend hours glued in front of a TV screen. And the very best mobile games offer something deeper and more compelling for players who plumb their depths.

Tom's Hardware: Connecting an Xbox controller to an Asus Transformer Prime with its display output to a big-screen HDTV enables Xbox-like game play that makes me wonder if console replacement might be inevitable. Do you feel that mobile gaming might actually replace console gaming, or is mobile gaming a separate and distinct gaming paradigm?

Fishlabs: Mobile Gaming does not only become more and more popular by the hour, but also more and more elaborate and ambitious. Of course, it is hard to say whether mobile will be able to replace the traditional consoles once and for all, but there is no denying that it will get tougher and tougher for the PlayStations and Xboxes out there to keep pace with the incredibly fast development and extremely short innovation cycles of the mobile market. The PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 are both already more than five years old and they’re still the most advanced consoles on the market. In an even shorter period of time, mobile devices have evolved from the very first iPhone to the iPhone 4S, the Samsung Galaxy S2 and the new iPad!

With steadily growing hardware capabilities and a ceaseless stream of new features and possibilities, there is hardly a limit to the amazing things that mobile is capable of. Cross-platform gaming, multiplayer gaming, and online connectivity are no longer dreams of the future for today’s mobile gamers. And thanks to amazing features such as Apple AirPlay or big-screen HDTV support, you’re also no longer restricted to the comparatively small display of your smartphone or tablet.

In addition to those gadgets, one of the biggest advantages of mobile gaming is and will always be the fact, that mobile gamers are able to play their favorite titles whenever and wherever they want. In Galaxy on Fire 2, for example, users are free to chose whether they just want to play a few side missions on the bus to work or indulge in a deeper and more immersive part of the story once they have more time. Ultimately, they can even take their current game session to the Mac, connect their Xbox or Playstation controller to it and continue where they left off at an incredible 2560x1440 resolution. That is even beyond HDTV console gaming. You can clearly see, the “mobile” medium grants users more freedom than any other platform. The more technical and game play-related innovations it brings forth, the harder it will be for the traditional platforms and systems to convince their users not to trade in the controllers of their consoles for the touch screens of the latest-generation smartphones and tablets.

Madfinger: In my opinion, we are headed down that path. I enjoy the fact that I can use just one device—tablet or phone—for gaming on my way to work, at home, or while traveling. This is the future, but it does not necessarily mean that we are replacing consoles. Many hardcore players will stay devoted to consoles, as many players have remained devoted to PC gaming.

A few years ago, there were no tablets or smartphones, so it is hard to speculate how things will look in the next few years. We are living in an exciting era now, because manufacturers of mobiles, tablets, handhelds, and consoles have to come up with new ideas, instead of merely increasing performance, adding extra memory, or upping the pixel count.

Mediocre: I think there will always be a market for hardcore console gamers, but it will shrink drastically over the next few years. This is already happening. You will obviously never get the same level of performance on a mobile device as you can with a plugged-in console, but for most gamers, the performance of next-generation or even current-generation mobile devices is good enough. The advantages of being able to pick up the device and keep gaming on the bus will outweigh the drawbacks.

Vector Unit: Mobile games are changing the gaming market in a major way, not just on mobile devices, but across all platforms. I think even on consoles and PCs you’ll see fewer and fewer $60 boxed games (at least fewer successful ones), and more and more games coming out that are cheap or free to play, that offer more content for dedicated players through in-app purchasing and the like. I mean—that ship has already sailed!

We'll wrap up our interview on that note, and we extend special thanks to the developers at Fishlabs, Madfinger, Mediocre, and Vector Unit for answering our questions. We hope to speak again soon about the latest developments in the mobile gaming industry and look forward to their next exciting mobile game titles!