@Plaupius: The market most propably rejects the complex games since the device isn't bought for the purpose, basically the mobile phone gaming limits itself to situation where you wait (bus, train, doctor etc, which isn't the case with handheld gaming devices). Also the market itself is problematic; a new phone model comes out a dozen times a year, when you are likely to get a new phone pretty often, unlike handhelds, that you may change once in 5 years.

iPhone has no future for gaming. And I'll give you the reason. Jailbreak.

I jailbroke mine, everyone I know has theirs jailbroken. Until they can prevent that sort of thing, people will take advantage of it.

That most likely is true, but there might be a niche in the market for more complex games as well, and also there is a strong possibility that more complex games attract more gaming-oriented people to get the device. But at this point this is largely speculation.

Speaking of the cell phone market in general, what you say is indeed true. The big plus for Apple is their extremely limited range, and how the platform is very much unified from the developer point of view. Still, it might be that Apple has to change the HW in such ways that it will break the platform uniformity, such as changing the screen resolution. Adding in a more powerful processor and/or graphics chip doesn't necessarily break the uniformity completely as long as the new device is backwards compatible, and so far that has been Apple's mode of operation. Still, I wait this summer and the (likely) new iPhone with mixed feelings.

@Plaupius: I mentioned the (semi)standard platforms as N-Gage 2 and iPhone for the developer interest. BC is a good point too, but that's not the biggest problem from markets perspective considering the new phone models. The problem is, that when people swich their phones, they also ditch the purchased software, when BC doesn't extend from one device into another. Also the fact that people tend to jump from one brand to another pretty easilly when it comes to phones and you're likely to either sell your old phone, throw it into garbage or let it gather dust in the drawer.
IPhone do have the strength of being compatible with iPod.

Staude, you are clearly missing my point, and I am apparently missing yours.

I am simply saying, that MG:touch, looks better than Time Crisis. I know there are reasons why it was easier to make MG:touch look better than TC, you have explained them most admirably. However, understanding the reasons does not change the fact that it does indeed look better.

That is why I challenged you to look through the entire PS1 catalogue for a game that actually looks better than MG:touch, because that is what the OP claimed. I did not ask you to look for a game that looks considerably worse, btu that we know why it looks worse

Edit: No, I do not own an Iphone or an Ipod touch. My phone is an old Nokia brick. I am having this discussion not out of some fanboy urge to defend anything particular console, merely because it is the truth

I can't discuss graphics and not look at the technology behind it too. And you can't honestly say that mgt looks better in motion because it looks Sooooooo stale.

Ditching the software certainly is a problem, however I doubt it is as much of a problem with the iPhone or iPod Touch. The reason being that the users are likely to have a catalog of music and software that it at least partially tied to their iTunes, and the amount of money they have spent on those creates some sort of barrier to switch to a different vendor. Also, another point to ponder about is that people used to switch phones because each new model would have more and better features, but at least currently it seems that the importance of new features has dramatically lessened. Perhaps cell phones have reached a certain point of maturity where they pretty much have all the technical features that people want, apart from the obvious battery life that you can never have too much.

Regarding the BC, I'm talking from a developer's perspective here: I as a dev would really hate if every new piece of HW would mean that the existing installed base is either out, or that I have to support multiple pieces of hardware. And if the devs don't come, games won't come, and without games there won't be customers. I see two things that Apple has managed to do better than others so far:

a) creating a reasonably unified software/hardware development platform with great development tools and documentation, and

b) creating, or findging, a market who is willing and able to buy the software and use it.

Without those two pieces in place, any similar attemp is likely to fail. Nokia Ovi and the N-Gage software platform are a step in the right direction, but if you compare the success of Ovi to the success of the AppStore, it's clear that Nokia can't even begin to compete. According to Wikipedia the N-Gage was launched about a year ago, and there are currently 36 games available. In contrast, the iPhone SDK has been available for about a year, and there are currently about 6500 games available (according to Apptism) out of which around 4800 are paid and the rest are free. Even if the Apptism figures were a bit off, the iPhone still has more than a hundred times more games. Granted, perhaps 99.9% of them are crap, but that doesn't take away from the success of the platform.

@scottie: MGST simply looks terrible in motion. As long as it's only pictures, it looks fine, but when anything moves - it's terrible. They've simply taken pictures of scenes seen in MGS4 and then put them as backgrounds. Well, maybe not that simple but it should give a very good idea of what's happening. Anyway, my point is that it looks terrible in motion and that's what matter because that's how you actually play it.

@others arguing about MGST's graphics: Who cares about how it's done? If it looks good, it doesn't matter how it's done. Of course that isn't the case now unless you like watching still pictures of a game...

And finally, I really hope iPhone never gets too much popularity among 'real' gamers (you know what I mean, don't say anything about it). It's overpriced and uses digital distribution only; it's bad for the customer, even if the customer likes it.

@Zkuq

"And finally, I really hope iPhone never gets too much popularity among 'real' gamers (you know what I mean, don't say anything about it). It's overpriced and uses digital distribution only; it's bad for the customer, even if the customer likes it."

I'm curious as to why you think using digital distribution only is bad for the customer?

Uhhh... what? I think if the customer is satisfied the company has done their job. And I can't imagine how much the App Store would suck if I actually had to drive to a Best Buy or Apple Store to buy apps. That would totally moronic on Apple's part. Heck I wish all the consoles would let me download their games for a fee and burn them- never gonna happen but I wish it would.

I got my iPhone cheaper than the touch I was looking at. Payed $100 which to me seems pretty affordable compared to crap like the Instinct or whatever the knockoff of the week is. The G1 is sexy though- but expensive. ANybody who buys an iPhone at MSRP is either in a hurry or a fool.