Epic Games shows off Unreal Engine 3 for iPhone and iPod touch

When I think about portable gaming consoles, the iPhone or iPod touch are the last things on my mind. Forget the fact that the controls can be a bit hard to handle on the touchscreen display, I just don't think I can enjoy gaming on such as small screen with low-res games. Well, it looks like things are about to change in the graphics department, where I think iPhone games are severely lacking, with the introduction of Epic Games's Unreal Engine 3 for the iPhone platform. Above is a screenshot of Unreal Tournament played on an iPod touch for a demonstration.

Anandtech's Anand Lal Shimpi got a chance to try out the game, and he comments, "In practice, the controls work well... the frame rate was smooth. There are more visuals to be added, as well as some polishing, but the demo looked very good for an iPhone game." But don't take his word for it, watch a video of the demo gameplay after the break.

Intel says NVIDIA's Ion platform overkill for 3D gaming, suggests upgrade to Clarkdale and Arrandale instead

Intel's stance on 3D gaming and multimedia consumption on netbooks is a bit hard to comprehend. On one hand, they think of NVIDIA's Ion platform as overkill for applications such as 1080p video playback and light 3D gaming. This is according to Anil Nanduri, Intel's netbook marketing director who said in an interview with Laptop Magazine: "We believe (Ion) adds unnecessary additional cost and the other trade-offs make it less desirable."

However, writing on one of Intel's own blogs, corporate communications manager Bill Calder says, "[Netbooks] aren't for 3D gaming and multi-tasking. For that Intel offers a wide range of full-featured laptops including some exciting new Intel Core systems based on our latest 32nm process technology coming soon." Then he links to a report on CNet where it says that Intel's upcoming Clarkdale and Arrandale family of processors will be on the market very soon.

So, they think the combination of a good enough processor in the form of the Atom coupled with a great mobile graphics processor in NVIDIA's Ion platform is too much, and yet go on to suggest a move to full-featured laptops which are far more overkill and overpriced for the tasks that Ion is able to achieve, for less money. And they say, "the market is going to decide." Well, who do you think is deciding now?

Source: [LaptopMag, Liliputing, Technology@Intel]