This ending 2008 is and will be remembered as the worse economy related year, a year marked with economy downturns, financial and housing institutions on bankruptcy, automakers and retailers bleeding money each day, but within all this obscure and unpredictable moment Apple has remained as one of the most brighter tech company on the market being almost unaffected by recent economic worries (stock value is getting hit as economy get worse), product line up, competitive pricing and innovation-driven technology has catapulted Apple in the front-run of the market.

Apple bid on the iPhone for the 2008 and it dominated all headline across the country, not other major rivals have enjoyed this kind of exposure and none of them have gathered the same level of costumer satisfaction conquered by the iPhone 3G this year. We have seen a few dozens rivals trying to recapture some smartphone marketshare taken by the iPhone.

But things are just starting as Apple is entering the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP markets with the iPod Touch, a strategy that will need a bigger commitment from Apple to game developers, something avoided totally by Apple in the Mac OS X Platform.

As the iPod Touch enters this lucrative and competitive market of mobile gaming, it will place Apple, Nintendo and Sony on the same segment, being Apple the one that hasn’t any previous experience on mobile gaming, but the same happened when Apple entered the mobile phone business and ended up marking the direction to follow in that space.

The Mobile Gaming Platform is a totally new beast for everybody and even Microsoft (with the enormous success with the Xbox console) has reconsidered and opted out completely of it, because there are too much factors to take on account (game developers commitment, Return on Investment, technical support and portability).

Apple should provide all technical support, hands-on tutorials and any information needed for game development on the iPod Touch and while the Apple Developer Connection already provides this kind of help, Apple needs to extend it to guarantee a commitment from the Game Developers. The success of the iPod Touch and the iPhone is attracting a new breed of game developers to the platform making it easier for Apple to guarantee fresh and consumer-driven material for the nascent mobile device.

One of the major problem when developing for the iPod or iPhone is Portability, designing for the iPod Touch and then porting it to other mobile gaming devices or mobile phones will be a daunting process, Apple SDK agreement won’t permit developers to port their applications or games to other platforms. But Portability can wait if Profitability comes into place and a lot of iPhone developers are reporting good profits from dumb apps, good games have a higher change here.

Officially, the 2009 is going to be the Year of the iPod Touch, it gotta be, the iPod Touch is poised to get neck on neck with Nintendo and Sony devices, this new year Apple will put its pants on and bring us a rejuvenated and gaming oriented iPod Touch, the iPhone can wait.

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it, about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.