Why the disparity between Android and iPhone games?

[Libuff]

after examining the hardware between the Droid or N1 as compared to the iPhone 3Gs, it is hard to understand why the iPhone 3Gs has far better games than on the Droid or N1.

is this an issue of hardware support within the OS, or a lack of development? is there support, like the iPhone, for open graphical architectures?

 

[ardoreal]

Lack of storage. Right now Android apps can only go on the internal ROM, the Droid's is 256mb, N1's is 512.

Google's said they "will eventually" allow apps to store on the SD card but only when they've worked out an encryption system. For now that means few good apps that are iPhone-quality despite Android being more robust....

 

[herki]

I think it's just lack of development. The iPhone has just been around longer. (And has more storage)
There's the potential for games, EA has released a few for Android, it's just that the smaller developers can make more money developing for the iPhone.

 

[Adiliyo]

all the things above, plus marketshare of the iphone makes that platform (for the time being) more attractive to devs.

hopefully once google implements storing apps on the SD card it'll open up the market a little bit.

plus the droid and N1 just came out, until them the android handsets were pretty underpowered.

 

[tada1096]

Oh now to dream. IPhone level games hurry up Google I can't wait

 

[ardoreal]

If you want to pester Google to hurry up with this, go to this link

Issue 1151 - android - RFE: Support install of apps on SD cards - Project Hosting on Google Code

Sign in with your Google account, star the issue, and then add a comment.

Folks I think you're off base with your other reasons. EA saw fit to invest into 3d gaming on the Pre, which has a smaller userbase than just Droid users, let alone all the Hero and N1 users. The market potential is there and the sentiment from developers is all the same, storage.

With the storage, you would see an immediate and overwhelming avalanche of games either ported directly from iPhone, on par with iPhone, or in some cases better than iPhone.

It's a reprehensible and despicably shortsighted decision on the part of Google.

 

[Charmed Juan]

It's all about storage

The Iphone has the entire memory for apps.
The Droid is limited to 256mb. Some apps use the SD card for data storage but the app is still in that 256mb. Developers try to keep their apps as small as possible.

 

[ardoreal]

Well, exactly. When you get rich and beautiful artwork combined with a wealth of great audio, your apps get huge. Doom:Resurrection on iPhone was wonderful too, great audio, ambience, and killer visuals. It's 80mb. Might not seem much but when you're in that 256mb rom limit your options get pretty small. Asking users to have over 1/4 of their space devoted to just one app is pretty bad when the phone was advertised as a 16gb phone.

 

[Zorro1]

Well, hopefully it's just maturity since there are some great apps and games, just not the ones I'm dying for, like Gin and Bristol solitaire I had in Palm world. And a friggin' encryption app for the card. I really don't get what the deal is on that.