Trades blue hedgehogs for iPhone development
Late last night gaming business site Gamasutra reported that Sega of America CEO Simon Jeffery has resigned from his position at the company in order to join iPhone-centric software developer NGmoco, where he will take a position as head of the company’s new publishing division. Here, Jeffery will presumably manage third-party developers who wish to use NGmoco’s social-networking-focused “Plus Network” iPhone framework.
Speaking to Gamasutra, Jeffery was excited about the shift in focus from “$25 million games” down to “$25,000 games” and that he “really [wants] to be part of that.”
Though many news outlets were initially skeptical, gaming on Apple’s iPhone has been steadily growing in popularity over the last year or so, and some of the top-tier game developers are starting to publish versions of their most popular franchises on the platform, such as Ubisoft with Assassin’s Creed: Altair’s Chronicles earlier this year. iPhone games typically use the device’s tilt sensor and multi-touch touchscreen for controls. Graphically, some developers have equated it to around the same level of power as the Sega Dreamcast. Just recently, Apple announced the next model of the iPhone, the iPhone 3GS, and stated that the original iPhone 3G would still be on the market, at a price of only $99 – half of its original price, and also making it cheaper than both the Nintendo DS and Playstation Portable.
NGmoco was founded by Neil Young, a former executive at Electronic Arts, in July 2008. Since then, NGmoco has gone on to become a prominent iPhone developer, with games like Rolando, Topple 2 and Dr. Awesome: Microsurgeon M.D.
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Interesting. Have fun, Simon. You’re Apple’s ***** now. >:D
jk
Rock on.
Best of luck to you sir.
Also, I don’t get how people can equal the iPhone do the Dreamcast’s power. I’ve seen it in action with 3D games and it doesn’t impress me more than even the DS has. And the PSP seems much more powerful as far as game graphics go, yet I haven’t seen its good-looking games look as good as Dreamcast’s good-looking games.
Ok, I don’t care. As long as Yoshihisa stays on SEGA I’m happy!
Lol, apple sucks! They only makes shit!
The ipod have many problems and just stop working after a while! And! It can’t play all kinds of music files! Beacaus it’s locked for many of them!
It’s so many that complain about iPhone, I know one who’s father works in a shop with cellphones and many comes back and claims that it is only shit!
If you’re going to get a music player, get a “Creative”! They’re much better!
But good luck “Simon”! I don’t think he’s a imåortant person for Sonic anyway.
Isn’t the site’s motto ”see it NOW” ?
If that’s true, why did it take an ENTIRE NIGHT for this article to appear on this website, when it’s been on Kotaku for the past 8 or so hours?
HAAAALELUJAH. HAAAAALELUJAH.
@Osnic: Nah, I think the top boys and girls would be with Sega of Japan, the others departments across the globe are just languages and marketing I guess, correct me if I’m wrong though.
Well the best to you, Mr Geoffrey, anyway, it’s all a new experience!
Gosh, all these Apple haters here, get a life dudes!
As long as they improve sonic´s Daytime gameplay from Unleashed (wich was horrible when you didn´t run at 300Mph, just not good for precise platforming, didn´t feel good to control him), and you really gotta be sorta blind to not see the flaws. He also didn´t respond to every button that was pressed, I died so many times because the game didn´t recognise the button I pressed!
If Sonic Team CAN and I´m sure they CAN, improve his controls, then I´m fine, they also should remove all those unneeded bottomless pits and boostpads, I want Sonic to run UNDER the water surface, not dieing instantly! -.-´ Bring a usable Spindash back and give me some oldschool badniks with little animals in them, I´m sick an tired of those 08/15 robots and giant monsters!
I don´t want them to go completely back to the beginning, but they should import some more elemnts, Sonic lives from his oldschool flair today, why not use it, why is this stuff always used in spinoffs so perfectly and never in a main series game.
Unleashed was still a very fun game, but so many things could have been included and done so much better, but, there is always the next game, I would even be lucky if they fix sonic´s controls!
Sonic team just hasn´t found the perfect middle between good controls for Platforming and good controls for speedy gameplay yet, but unleashed is pretty close, a little less Road oriented next time please, there definatley was a lot stuff influenced by Takashi Lizuka, he always does these road like levels wich SU had a TON of. But Unleashed was close, pretty close, keep trying Sonic Team, keep trying!
Gotta get a iPhone in November, and then Sonic Unleahsed Portable, here I come! ^^ At least in the Handy game they have true pathways and most important of all, CRAPMEAT!!!!
@Osnic
My point exactly! apple sucks!
but as for this news.
YES! HES GONE! FINALLY!
Sega japan said they wanted to reenter hard ware… but SoA said no! this is perfect with Sega europe running SoA things will get better! Europe Sega is more sensible than both of them! maybe we will get a new piece of hardware thats not the Vision! and since sega europe is with america and the vision was a european exclusive that means we americans might get it!!!
@DoctorEggman: The version of Assassin’s Creed that was published on the iPhone was actually a greatly enhanced port of the Nintendo DS version of the game. The graphics look a LOT better on the iPhone version.
Personally I’m very relieved he’s gone. He kind of sucks…
@Ryan:
Oh, that’s interesting! I guess I still haven’t seen what it can do. Too bad that game sucked. I beat it because beneath the suckage I saw an enjoyable game. Did they improve on it besides just the graphics?