Neil Young, founder of iPhone development house Ngmoco, heaped some heavy praise on the iPhone yesterday during a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.
Our love affair with the iPhone began by simply touching it. This was rapidly becoming the most important device I had ever owned. It was an all-encompassing, complete device. And I knew that that device was going to enable incredible things for gaming.
Ngmoco, which started in June 2008, is the publishing house behind popular iPhone games such as Topple and WordFu, in addition to being the brains behind the ubiquitously praised and highly regarded Rolando app. In total, Ngmoco has already released 7 iPhone titles, and they have nearly a dozen more currently in development.
During his keynote, Young compared the gaming prowess of the iPhone to the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP, and not surprisingly, he explained why the iPhone is, in his view, an overall superior platform. For starters, Young explained, the iPhone is “always on, always with you.” Second, Young pointed out that app store titles and sales are not only increasing, but accelerating. And as for gameplay, Young shared the following:
Don’t let the haters tell you it sucks compared to the DS or the PSP. It doesn’t. It’s good. It’s clear that the quality of iPhone games is eclipsing its [portable] console counterparts, and that’s even more acute when you compare it against the prior generation.
Young, who formerly worked for EA, left the publishing giant in order to launch Ngmoco and focus exclusively on iPhone development. The company currently has 26 employees, and Young’s genuine excitement regarding the gaming potential of the iPhone shines through whenever the topic arises.
It’s just a blend of amazing capability with this awesome usability. And its clearly those two things that are enabling this new type of usage patterns both in terms of how people are consuming games and how much they’re consuming. And also the ease at which they’re able to get them.
But users aren’t the only ones who are on the Ngmoco bandwagon, as Ngmoco recently secured $10 Million in venture capital funding, which is on top of the $5.6 Million they raised when they first opened up shop.
What’s scary, though, is that Ngmoco hasn’t even been around for a year. If the polish of Rolando is an indication of things to come, you can expect to see a lot of ingenuity coming out of Ngmoco in the coming months.
Related: Enigmo developer nets over $2 Million in sales, will focus on iPhone development exclusively
March 24th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
Awesome. I wasn’t into playing games till the iPod touch.