Editorial: How Will Game Center Change iPhone Games?

Earlier this week, Apple announced the all new update to iPhone known as iPhone OS 4.0. It will be released this Summer for iPhone and iPod Touch and this Fall for iPad. Some of its most important new features include multitasking, the ability to organize apps into folders, change the wallpaper, iBooks, and iAd, a new way of doing mobile advertising. For gamers, the new app and feature known as Game Center may change how games are played on iPhone.

Game Center will be a unified social gaming network from Apple. You will be able to invite friends to games, do matchmaking, look at leaderboards, and score achievements. It pretty much has all of the standard features one would expect from a social gaming network. It will work with any game that wants to support it. I think it is great that Apple has listened to its fans and saw just how many games are on the App Store and how many different social gaming networks there were on iPhone. Having one unified account will make things so much simpler but in the beginning, there might be some problems.

There are already numerous social gaming networks on the platform. The most popular include Plus+ from Ngmoco and OpenFeint by Aurora Feint but there are a handful of others. According to Scott Forstall, SVP of iPhone software and Apple CEO Steve Jobs during a Q and A after the press event, they stated that some of these networks wanted Apple to create one unified service. They were not specific on who asked. Many of those in charge of some of the most popular gaming networks on iPhone stated that they loved the idea of Game Center and want to support it. Will the existing social gaming networks on iPhone die? Yeah, they probably will. My only fear is that my achievements from other games of the different gaming networks will not transfer over to Game Center. Apple should work on a way for other social gaming networks to migrate a user's account with their progress and achievements. This might be the only way to ensure Game Center is the only network on iPhone.

Games will be sure to come out on the network and offer easy ways to get achievements. The ability to see other games that your friends are playing might persuade you to buy a game in order to play it with others. It will be easier to find out what friends are playing and boost the sales of games on iPhone. Game Center has a huge opportunity to help games and social networking become even better on iPhone.

GamersCast Invited to E3 2008!

UPDATE: Direct Video Link



This is probably one of the happiest moments of my life. As we all know, last year E3 became invitation only, and very few gaming outlets got the honor of going to this huge event.

And now, just today, only a few minutes ago, I got an e-mail from the ESA (they run E3), and I WAS INVITED!

That's right! GamersCast is going to E3 2008!! E3 2008 is taking place in the LA Convention Center from July 15 to July 17th.

And for the first time, I'll have all the news for you while at the showfloor! And I'll be recording the press conferences on my own camera and everything! This has to be one of the happyest moments of my life. And I want to thank each and every one of our podcast listeners and site readers for letting us get this far!
THANK YOU!

Huge News At Macworld (Full Keynote Inside!)

Update: Here is the full MacWorld 2008 Keynote, given by Steve Jobs. It's uploaded onto my YouTube Account. Click here to go to the video page on YouTube. (Use the link if you are using an iPhone or iPod Touch)




Before I begin writing about the great news that came out of Macworld, I just want to apologize about my post about Smash Bros. Brawl this morning. If I offended anyone by what I wrote, I apologize. That was unexpected news which caught me by surprise. I do not mean most of the stuff I said. I do not think in the mornings. Brawl is going to be an incredible game when it comes out and now I have much higher expectations for it. I don't know about Matt but my expectations will be so high that the score of this game could be lower than I would ever expect it to be if the game does not perfectly execute everything it said it would do. However, I am still going on my word and boycotting all non free (who can't resist free stuff) Wii software until Brawl releases. If I offended anyone I am sorry.

On a much lighter note, MacWorld started today in San Francisco and four huge updates and new products were shown. The first of four was a new accessory for Macs called Time Capsule which is a 802.11 n base station and an external drive. 500GB model for $299 and a 1TB model for $499. The second thing was software updates for both the iPhone and iPod Touch. The iPhone will have location on Maps, SMS multiple people, rearranging icons on the home screen, and webclips. This update is available now for free. The iPod Touch updates include five new apps including Notes, E-mail, Stocks, Weather, and Maps with location via Wi-Fi. It also includes rearanging icons and webclips. This update will come with the iPod Touch starting today and for existing owners, the update will be available today for $20. The third thing revealed was movie rentals on iTunes. All of the major players are on board. You can watch the movies you rented on your computer, all current gen iPods (iPod Touch, Classic, and Nano), iPhones, and Apple TVs. A new software update will be unleashed for Apple TV which will allow you to buy music, tv shows, and HD movie rentals on the Apple TV. This update will come out in two weeks. The price of Apple TV also droped from $299 to $229. The final thing shown was a new laptop called Macbook Air. It is the thinest laptop ever made with 80GB HDD, 2GB of ram, and Intel core 2 duo for $1799. Since the Macbook Air has no disc drive, an external disk drive is also available for $99. You can also install special software on a PC or Mac so it can "borrow" its disc drive. But what does this have to do with gaming? The iPhone SDK will release next month so we could be seeing native games on iPhone very soon.

Also two announcements from EA and Activision. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is going to be releasing to Mac OS X in May and Will Wright's highly anticipated game Spore is going to be releasing this year simultaneously on PC and Mac OS X. This looks like a great year for Apple.


Get the GamersCast Newsletter! All of the quality news you would find here can be sent directly to your e-mail's inbox or Wii's Message Board the instant news is posted here! Simply send an e-mail to GCnewsletter@gmail.com or register GCnewsletter@gmail.com into your Nintendo Wii's Address Book to subscribe!

Pokemon Snap Finally Coming To Virtural Console

One of my favorite Nintendo 64 games is finally coming to the VC soon. It will release in Japan on December 4 for 1000 Wii Points. But there is a new special feature being added to this classic game. Now, you will have the ability to send your pictures to your friends via WiiConnect24. This is an exciting new feature and it is the first time something new is added to a VC game. Although it will come to Japan only next week, it will be coming to the U.S on monday December 10. Buy this. It will be the best three hours youve ever spent with a classic controler in your hands.


Get the GamersCast Newsletter! All of the quality news you would find here can be sent directly to your e-mail's inbox or Wii's Message Board the instant news is posted here! Simply send an e-mail to GCnewsletter@gmail.com or register GCnewsletter@gmail.com into your Nintendo Wii's Address Book to subscribe!

E3 Coverage Begins! Website Launches!

E3 may have shrunk, but the hype is still as big as it ever was! Some say this may be the biggest E3 ever (news wise :P) So, we here at GamersCast are kicking off our coverage of E3 2007 a week early! How could we do that? Well, we are going to have a special pre-E3 edition of GamersCast being recorded this week, another special edition of GamersCast during E3, and a special post-E3 edition of GamersCast after E3. But there's still more!

For the past three and a half years, the site has been under construction....
Ideas have been scrapped....
Server Conflictions occured....
And so many other disasters happened.....
BUT now, after almost four years of waiting, within the next few days, the site will finally launch in its completed form! So, be sure to check that out once it happens, over at:
GamersCastPodCast.com

But now, you ask, What could you possibly talk about in these special episodes? Well, in our 1st pre-E3 episode, we're kicking off the 1st Annual GamersCast Awards! We're gonna give out awards for the best games from 2006, talk about the most promising games to be released, and take a peak at what's in store for us this year at E3!

Our special E3 episode, we'll talk about the ups and downs of each company's press conference and take a look at the games themselves showed off at E3 in a truely in depth discussion, you will know what games to buy, and which will flop *coughredsteelcough*!

In our post E3 episode we'll look at the events of the entire conference as a whole, games that didn't pop up until after the press conference (like Super Smash Brothers Brawl did last year), and take a more detailed view of the games shown, now that we've had time to digest what's happened.

But don't worry, we've got more than just special episodes to give you. Just like last year, we're gonna stick-up LOADS and LOADS of game trailers and videos straight from the E3 show floor! It's all coming your way within the next few days, at one of your best sources for EVERYTHING going on in the world of video games.

This is GamersCast: E3 Edition!

Gears of War Update

The highly anticipated update to Gears of War, originally intended for April 9th, has been delayed. It is expected to be released later this month, but there's been no sure word of it yet.

The update includes fixes to many glitches, more customized multiplayer/Live options and more. We here will let you know once it is released.

GamersCast March Preview: A record breaking download month!

You guys never cease to amaze me. Last month, I was in shock about how many downloads we had, as we had just hit our 10,000+ download milestone at the time. But last month was nothing compared to the immense support you guys showed us this month. In February 2007 alone, you guys have now more than TRIPLED our previous download record, which was set just last month, especially considering it's the shortest month of the year! So, once again for setting another download record I would like to thank you all for supporting the podcast!

Since you guys have been showing so much support, I'm gonna let you guys in on a few things we have planned for the podcast.

This weekend we are planning on recording episode 20 of GamersCast, so be sure to look for that on the feed soon. We are also looking into our budgets to get ideas on how to give the podcast a few upgrades. The final design for the website is coming along great, and it should be launching early on this summer. We also may tentatively be going to this year's E3!

Our video game tournaments may be considered "dead" to some, but we have been re-doing the entire interface for that, so we will be able to get those up and running fairly soon as well.

Around the holidays, I decided that my New Years resolution for the podcast would be to get at least one thing on the feed every 10 days. In 2006, like Nintendo, there were huge droughts on the feed. We're going to make sure that doesn't happen again. And if for some reason it does get past 10 days (don't plan on it), you can expect to be bombarded with loads of content afterwards!

And of course, we have loads of reviews being planned for March, including reviews of:

- God of War II
- Excite Truck
- Sonic and The Secret Rings
- Mario Party 8
- Diddy Kong Racing DS
- Wii Sports
- Legend of Zelda: A Link to The Past (Virtual Console)
- Legend of Zelda (Virtual Console)
- Excitebike (Virtual Console)
- World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions
- Kirby's Adventure (Virtual Console)
- Kid Icarus (Virtual Console)
- Star Fox 64 (Virtual Console)
- Donkey Kong Country (Virtual Console)
- Super Mario World (Virtual Console)
- Super Mario Brothers (Virtual Console)
- And other possible Virtual Console releases!

Yes, I know some of these games I said were going to be reviewed in February, but we got really busy, but hey you also got a lot of reviews we weren't expecting to put up, also! I mean, we gave you a review of Crackdown, when I never said anything about that. We're also going to be covering loads of other stuff this month as well! So once again guys, thanks so much for supporting the show!

Oh yeah, and we're also gonna try and find a fix for the problem Wii users are having with the newsletter.

GamersCast Reviews Feed!

We now have an entirely new page (similar to the GamersCast News Feed page) made just for our game reviews. This page will be compiled of all our audio and video reviews. Don't worry, you can still get all these same reviews on the podcast feed, as always, except now they are all in one conveinent directory.

Check it out at:

GamersCastPodCast.com/reviews

Now we are organized!

At long last! Now, thanks to Blogger leaving their BETA, we can have a much more organized feed, with more content delivered to you quicker than ever before! (And yes, I know I have said that a lot). And now, you can even get the brand-new GamersCast Newsletter from the Wii console's Wii Message Board! To find out more, visit the GamersCast Homepage!

http://www.gamerscastpodcast.com