When the iPhone 4 hits later this month it will bring with it better motion sensing for games and applications on the device, but will game developers take advantage of that.
We asked SEGA, 2XL and the creator of Pocket God what there plans our for the new capabilities.
Ben Harborne, digital brand manager for SEGA, said that the developer is excited about the "new range of possibilities" offered by the gyroscope.
"We look forward to creating titles that take advantage of such precise controls in the near future," he said.
2XL Games, the folks behind TrophyLite Rally, X Games Snocross and 2XL Supercross, says they've been waiting for this improvement for quite awhile.
"We've had some ideas about using the orientation of the iPhone for a while now, but had to wait for the accuracy that the new rate gyros will provide," said 2XL Games president Rick Baltman. "Now that we know the heading, pitch and roll of the phone, we can create several augmented reality apps that can provide guidance and information in very intuitive and user friendly ways. We also have several game concepts that take advantage of this as well. You can now use the phone as a, 'Window into a virtual world,' where you physically have to look up, down left and right to view the game world you are inside. Once we can get our hands on the new hardware, we'll play around with gesture recognition to see what we can do with it. We're really looking forward to it."
As with the roll-out of the iPhone 3Gs, the iPhone 4 still isn't in the hands of most game developers yet. So development of games specific for the new device can't really get underway by a bulk of these developer until later in the month. And once they do, many of them will have to decide if they want to create a game that will only work for a fraction of the iPhone and iPod Touch audience.
When the 3Gs hit, many developers either waited for that audience to grow, or created games that could detect which version of the phone it was running on and then respond accordingly. In this case, it's likely some developers will initially only add little updates for the increased sensitivity to motion control.
That's what Dave Castelnuvo is planning for his super popular iPhone game Pocket God.
"We may use it on a limited basis to add a little bonus feature for users with iPhone 4 devices," he said. "I can see this enhancing our earthquake and gravity functionality so you can completely disorient the pygmies when you move the phone around in weird ways. "