How good can gaming get on mobile devices? iPhone users have gotten a taste, as they have a number of gaming titles already available. But if you’re reading this site chances are you’re not concerned with gaming on an iPhone. You want to see the future of gaming on Android devices. In that case: good news everybody.
Today we learned of two significant developments in Android gaming. One involves OpenFeint, a social gaming platform, and the other involves the Unreal Engine. Both should make mobile gaming a better experience.
We’ll turn to Droid Gamers for the skinny. First up is OpenFeint, a platform that creates a social gaming environment on mobile platforms. Today we learned that it is now available for Android developers. That should help bolster Android game production.
Not only that, but it will bring a number of OpenFeint titles to the in the next month, including 10 right now. You can check out the whole list at the above link. It includes Fruit Ninja, a game that Phandroid covered yesterday.
You might notice a number of the other titles already in the Market, and in due time they’ll all be updated with OpenFeint. You can grab the Feint Game Spotlight app, QR code below, so you can get notifications of new arrivals.
If you’re not familiar, OpenFeint is a social gaming platform that allows players to enjoy games together. You can earn rewards, play with friends, and challenge the top players. It works across platforms, which makes it even more compelling. If it were just on Android or just on iPhone it would be one thing. But OpenFeint allows you to play games with other Android and iPhone users. That should create a compelling gaming environment.
The other announcement might not get as much airplay as OpenFeint, but I think it has bigger long-term implications. If you play video games frequently you’ve undoubtedly played one that uses the Unreal Engine.
The Unreal list is quite expansive. As Droid Games explains, it’s not exactly official for Android yet, but it’s close. As they report, Epic, the company behind Unreal, has demoed the engine on Android, so it seems like a matter of time before it goes official.
It’s already been announced for iOS, and Epic has said that it is the priority right now. That’s fine, of course; games utilizing the Unreal Engine might be better in tablet form than on a 4-inch screen.
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With the higher end android phones running with a 1ghz processor, and with the highly awaited samsung galaxy tablet running the android os it won’t be a surprise to see the unreal engine coming to android.