Who said iPhone is going to rule gaming? At least I didn't, and Gling Gling was answering to me so I take it you're referring to that. I also said myself that iPhones are not bought solely for gaming, but for a host of other things. Gaming is a plus there, not the defining feature. Still, I'm confident that iPhone will be clearly the best cell phone gaming platform, and most succesfull at that. As I said, it will be number 3, behind PSP and DS, but above all other cell phones.

Compare a game like Jak & Daxter to anything the Iphone has to offer and you will see that even its best games cant even compare to first gen PS2 games.

 Interestingly enough

Isn't it a little too early to judge the iPhone's capabilities by looking at its games?

I seriously couldn't care less about what the iPhone can or can't do, I'm not touching it with a 10-foot pole, but at least let's be reasonable here.

Why do people care about the Iphones capabilities ? i

Regarding game sale on the iPhone, they're already quite big. There is some programmer who developed a crossword puzzle game for the iPhone which is ranked around #39 in the iPhone charts. Now she revealed that she is selling more than 400 copies per day, which is more than 12.000 copies per month. [1] Going by this, iPhone games that have reached the top 3 or top 5 so far will already have sold more than 100.000 copies each. Pretty good for only 3 weeks of sales!

[1] http://www.macrumors.com/2008/08/01/iphone-app-store-numbers-reveal-large-revenue-opportunities/

@reverie: The early adopters are more likely to buy games, especially when they just got a new toy to play with.

Good figures though, that's a nice profit for whoever made those games.

First off, I own an iPhone so I can speak with some ethos to this topic.

But, before you call me a fanboy or label me biased, read on....

To be quite frank, Carmack is speaking out of his ass. As stated earlier, Carmack has generally dealt with x86 (PC) computers. He has little experience with game-console platform (GCP), so rating the iPhones performance compared to a GCP is very inaccurate and rather ill-informed. I imagine Carmack's statements extended from two possible influences:

1. He was directly comparing the hardware specs of each cited GCP to the iPhone's specs.

2. He was trying to gain support from Apple to establish future gaming business endeavors. (Sucking their dicks)

The hardware of each platform cannot be directly compared, primarily due to the unique architecture of each system. It would be quite amateur-ish to simply compare such specifications without comparing raw graphics power in depth (Polygons per second, lighting, texture, and resolution).

There is no way that the graphics capabilities of the iPhone compare to that of the PS2 or XBOX. However, do to recent advancements in technology architecture and Software Development Kits. I imagine that the iPhone contains 4th Generation (PS2 XBOX) lighting and 2D texture imaging. Also, I would hardly say the iPhone is as powerful as the NDS and the PSP COMBINED. It can definitely push more than the NDS but when it comes to the PSP, its a smidge behind the power curve. The PSP utilizes an independent GPU whereas the iPhone relies on integrated graphics technology. The technology intrinsically in the iPhone is superior all of the stated platforms above. However, it was not intended to be a primary gaming device. The PC driven applications on the iPhone such as Safari and Youtube are way beyond what the other stated platforms are capable of. If you want to play video games, get a PSP. If you want a superior and versatile handheld device get an iPhone. The lack of physical buttons hinders it far more as a gaming device than its graphics do...

Tim Y.