History
In September 2006, the iTunes Store began to offer nine additional games for purchase with the launch of iTunes 7, compatible with the fifth generation iPod with iPod software 1.2 or later. Those games were: Bejeweled, Cubis 2, Mahjong, Mini Golf, Pac-Man, Tetris, Texas Hold 'Em, Vortex, and Zuma. These games were made available for purchase from the iTunes Store for US$4.99 each. In December 2006 two more games were released by EA Mobile at the same price: Royal Solitaire and Sudoku. In February 2007, Ms. Pac-Man was released followed in April 2007 by iQuiz. Until this time, all the available games could be purchased in a package, with no discount.
In May 2007 Apple released Lost: The Video Game based on the television show, which is made by Gameloft. In June 2007 "SAT Prep 2008" by Kaplan. This was introduced as 3 separate educational games based on the subjects writing, reading, and mathematics. In December 2007, Apple released Sega's classic game; Sonic the Hedgehog, which was originally packaged with the Sega Genesis system in the early 1990s.
With third parties like Namco, Square Enix, EA, Sega, and Hudson Soft all making games for the iPod, Apple's MP3 player has taken great steps towards entering the video game handheld console market. Even video game magazines like GamePro & EGM have reviewed and rated most of their games as of late.
The games are in the form of .ipg files (iPod game), which are actually .zip archives in disguise. When unzipped, they reveal executable files along with common audio and image files, leading to the possibility of third party games. Currently, Apple has no publicly available software development kit (SDK) for iPod-specific development. The iOS SDK covers only iOS on the iPhone and iPod Touch, not traditional iPods.
As of October 2011, Apple has removed all the click-wheel operated games from its store.
Read more about this topic: IPod Games
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain—that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)