Home Page Forums Archives MacMAME OT: Downloadable games for 5G iPods

Once upon a time on this forum, back when front ends where the hot topic, there was an interesting discussion about an iTunes-style front end for MAME--in which I semi-jokingly suggested that the games would automatically sync with the game player iPod of the future.

Well, today's Apple dog-and-pony show revealed new downloadable games available for late-model iPods, including:

• ‚ÄúTetris,‚Äù ‚ÄúMahjong‚Äù and ‚ÄúMini Golf‚Äù from Electronic Arts Inc.
• ‚ÄúPac-Man‚Äù from Namco Networks America Inc. ‚ÄúCubis 2‚Äù from FreshGames, LLC
• ‚ÄúBejeweled‚Äù and ‚ÄúZuma‚Äù from PopCap Games, Inc.
• ‚ÄúTexas Hold‚Äôem‚Äù and ‚ÄúVortex‚Äù developed by Apple

Apple is selling these from the iTunes store for $4.99 apiece.

So I guess the real questions is (semi-jokingly again), when will iMAME be available?

Wow, now that's an idea....iPod Mame for all the old classics....any idea what the processing power is inside an iPod?

Extremely little - the iPodLinux guys indicate it's a 75 MHz ARM, with roughly equivalent performance to a 486/50 (or 68040/40 in Mac terms). It's a little better on the G5/nano, but not by much.

Hmm... yet, it is enough to decode H.264. Hmm, something must be doing that...

I just bought Vortex (StarCastle clone) as it seemed the most natural to play with a scroll wheel.

Processing power is plenty available.

Now, I... must... resist... the temptation to download Zuma, too. But I just love this game

arek: it has a dedicated hardware decoder chip.

Carbon: there is a world of difference between having enough power to run a port that's hand-tuned in ASM and running an emulator.

R. Belmont, I know, of course, just wanted to let you know that the game is running great

Does anyone know anyone at Electronic Arts, FreshGames, or PopCap that can tell us anything about game developement on the ipod?

Hey Apple, if my Nano can run Doom, why not make it available!?!??! Huh?!

Probably even if people knew how to get it to work, Apple's not going to release many of the specs publically--it's probably bound by a NDA, so... good luck. Who knows, though--maybe we'll see Apple make something publically available with some type of SDK to encourage developers to sell their media through the iTunes Store. It's a cool idea at least, and it'd be fun to be able to install other games on an iPod... though the buttons would be kinda odd

I for one would love Tempest.... or Dragon's Lair...