You have to remember that in a $30 PSP game, you have to pay the retailer (20% markup), you have to pay Sony/Nintendo their royalty fees, you have to pay for shipping and packaging, AND you have to pay the cartridge/UMD fee. On top of that, you have to eat any potential printing overages you may incur if the game doesn't sell.

Or you pay Apple a small percentage and they take care of the rest.

It sounds a little more reasonable when put that way, doesn't it?

Pretty much all of these post. It would be interesting to know how many people buy these Ipod/Iphone games.

http://metrics.admob.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/AdMob-Mobile-Metrics-Jan-10-Survey-Supplement.pdf

Admob says 78% download paid apps. Very small sample size, so take it with a grain of salt, but I'd aruge its not too far from the truth for the entirerty of the iPhone market.

It's my understanding that with the current development tools, porting to a new platform is quite easy and doesn't cost that much. Why not make an extra buck with quick ports of well known IPs.

Does anyone know of any exclusives for the iphone/ipod from one of the biggies? I mean actually spend time to come up with a new idea and money to develop a unique game.

Smaller studios are taking a larger risk but there games don't cost that much and quite a few of them are worth more than the selling price.

i dont know but they rock with my iphone jailbreaked!! so thanks!! companies.. lol... :D

Depends on how you define 'biggie'. Console-based publishers have done mostly ports. However, you have a lot of 'biggie' mobile developers putting out unique content to the iPhone that are high-end titles.

Like Ravensword from Chillingo:

Then you have the GTA-esque Gangstar

Those are 2 easy examples of big 3D games that are iPhone exclusive.

Android is still way far behind, but your starting to see some strong 3D games chart with decent sales numbers. Android has sold 8 million units, and the top title has sold just shy of 100,000 units (Robo Defense). Polarbit A.B. has done some great stuff, and are releasing 2nd-wave 3D titles to Android:

Because idiots will pay over the odds for a crap game that provides them with 10 minutes of enjoyment and probably took the developers about as long to produce?

becasue the iphone is proving to be a viable and profitable gaming device?

There are exclusives from big publishers, such as Song Summoner from Square-Enix and Surviving High School from EA, but not ones which took a large investment in content or advertising. Y'know, the exclusives that get people excited. A big exclusive IP would kinda go against the point of low-investment, low-price, digitally distributed games.

The iPhone is getting a surprisingly strong array of multiplat support both in terms of ports of old console and PC games and new releases. I wouldn't have expected a Sports Active title on the iPhone.

On the other hand, piracy is probably a much bigger issue on the Ipod. I know piracy exists on the DS, but it is  much easier to get a jailbroken Iphone and direct download from various torrent sites. 

Pretty much everyone that I know that has an Ipod touch has jailbroken it. 

Anyway, I think Nintendo is going to have a much harder time mass-selling their next handhold system due to the advent of the Ipod-- especially if all the game publishers keep flocking to Ipod and selling games for cheaper there.