Palm brings the games with native development 134
Sun, 14 Feb 2010 9:40 am EST 
Today at CES Palm announced the release of some high-powered games for webOS. Electronic Arts CEO Travis Boatman was on hand to talk about the new SDK and show of some new apps, including Sims 3 and Need For Speed. These games support full 3D graphics and look quite good. As you can imagine, there's a full set of APIs to make this work. The new apps will be available today. Exciting stuff, people.
UPDATE: Palm's native development platform is a "Plug-in Development Kit," or PDK. This allows native apps to hook into webOS and interact with the system, so that you can use stuff like the accelerometer and zooming out to card view pauses the game.
UPDATE 2: And we have a press release! It's after the break. Games listed: Need for Speed Undercover, The Sims 3, Monopoly, Asphalt 5: Elite Racing, Let's Golf!, Glyder 2, and X-Plane.
UPDATE 3: And they're here!
Palm Introduces 3D Games for webOS
Hot Game Titles from EA, Gameloft, Glu Mobile and Laminar Research Available Today in Palm App Catalog
LAS VEGAS, Jan 07, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- 3D gaming has landed on the Palm(R) webOS(TM) platform. Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today introduced several graphics-intensive game titles for webOS, from leading game developers EA Mobile(TM), a division of Electronic Arts Inc.; Gameloft; Glu Mobile; and Laminar Research. Demonstrated at Palm's CES event, the games will be available today in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers.
"We are very excited about the potential of webOS as a platform for mobile 3D gaming," said Katie Mitic, senior vice president, Product Marketing, Palm, Inc. "This is a key application category, and we've worked closely with some of the leading game developers to deliver a great game experience for our customers."
Seven 3D games were introduced today in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers:
- "Need for Speed(TM) Undercover" (EA Mobile)
- "The Sims(TM) 3" (EA Mobile)
- "MONOPOLY(TM)" (EA Mobile)
- "Asphalt 5: Elite Racing" (Gameloft)
- "Let's Golf!" (Gameloft)
- "Glyder 2" (Glu Mobile)
- "X-Plane" (Laminar Research)
Five other mobile games were also introduced: EA Mobile's "Tetris(R)," "Sudoku," and "SCRABBLE(R)," and Gameloft's "The Oregon Trail" and "Brain Challenge."
"Recent improvements to Palm webOS represent major advancements in enabling world-class mobile gaming," said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios for EA Mobile. "These innovations have allowed us to quickly bring our best IP to the platform."
The developers introducing titles today have had early access to the Palm webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK), which extends the Palm webOS Software Development Kit (SDK) with a set of tools, documentation and APIs that let developers write plug-ins for their webOS applications. The PDK lets developers easily integrate C and C++ code into their webOS applications, enabling new functionality, including immersive 3D games. A public beta version of the webOS PDK is scheduled to be available to all developers in March.
"The performance of the platform allowed us to create these great games in a limited timeframe," said Baudouin Corman, vice president of publishing, Americas, Gameloft. "webOS allows us to deliver an outstanding gaming experience, and we look forward to bringing our best games to Palm customers worldwide.""We expect the plug-in model to play an important role in the evolution of the webOS platform, just as plug-ins have with web browsers," said Mitic. "And with this plug-in, we are making it super-simple for developers to bring the hottest games to webOS."
The Palm App Catalog currently offers more than 1,000 webOS applications for download. Palm's unique over-the-air model also makes it easy for customers to get webOS updates and new features delivered directly to their phones. For example, at CES today, Palm announced that video recording, editing and sharing capabilities will soon be available for users of webOS phones. This new video capability will be delivered automatically to current and future Palm Pre(TM) and Palm Pixi(TM) products via an over-the-air update.
Palm also demonstrated Flash content in the browser on a Palm Pre and expects a free Adobe Flash Player 10.1 plug-in to be posted to the Palm App Catalog in the coming months. Palm expects webOS to be one of the first mobile platforms to support the full Flash Player in the web browser.
More information about the webOS PDK is available at the newly updated Palm Developer Center (developer.palm.com). More information about games for webOS is available at www.palm.com/applications.
About Palm, Inc.
Palm, Inc. creates intuitive and powerful mobile experiences that enable consumers and businesses to connect to their information in more useful and usable ways. The company's groundbreaking Palm(R) webOS(TM) platform, designed exclusively for mobile application, introduces true multitasking and Palm Synergy(TM), which brings your information from the many places it resides into a single, more comprehensive view of your life.
Palm products are sold through select Internet, retail, reseller and wireless operator channels, and at the Palm online store (www.palm.com/store).
More information about Palm, Inc. is available at www.palm.com.
Palm, Pixi, Pre, Synergy, and webOS are trademarks of Palm, Inc. MONOPOLY and SCRABBLE (in the U.S. and Canada) are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners.
SOURCE: Palm, Inc.
134 Comments
Exciting times indeed. Palm seem to have gone all out.
there goes any money that i plan on making
lol, I feel the same way
Well the plus side of killing of some off the smaller developer houses is that we will be less likely to see craptastic apps littering the app catalogs. No more over priced junk that should never have seen the light of day. This will force developers to actually TRY and write a good app versus kick something out and hope enough early adopters get screwed.
On a side note, I will truely be sorry if this kills off the legit developers that really did put some effort in but just didn't have the funds to develop.
You may well have hit the nail square on the head.
As good as this is for game players, it may the the death knell for game DEVELOPERS who aren't large dev houses, and that's a shame.
There may be a few minor surprises, like Braid on Xbox360, or other titles not developed by the major developers... but by and large I'd say the time of us one/two-man dev shops is all but done as of today unless you get exceptionally lucky.
i disagree i think the mobile market especially webOS is wide open for large and small devs alike.. i think nows the best time for a dev to try to make a name for themselves on this relatively new platform.
I certainly hope you're right. Time will tell.
I agree. The iPhone is littered with some great indie and not "big house" games that are great. I think it's a perfect environment.
It's unfortunate that not everybody can be totally successful... but I'm glad to see some quality apps, rather quickly I might add.
Today? I just came a little bit :O
i came every time engadget's live blog refreshed...lol
so cool palm just keep me as a customer. i luv my pre just wanted some real games now we have them cant wait for the next web os phone it keeps getting better
i don't know if its true that there's no room for small developers to make money. one of palms main focuses is for people to be able to expose their apps through non-traditional means. if your app is good and useful, i'm sure it'll float to the top...
not to mention that free apps are downloaded at a ridiculous rate already if you ask me. Wow people with a free trial, and i'm sure people will support ur product..
So no Unreal Engine, huh?
Then who the hell is gonna get it?
Neither Android (Google keynote) nor Windows Mobile / Zune (Microsoft keynote) and now, webos too.
Epic is the one that will tell everyone not palm even if it were for the pre, its up to epic to tell everyone.
There is still hope then :)
Does anyone know when Epic keynote is gonna start?
Well we got HTML, Javascript, CSS and now GCC (to compile C & C++) & SDL (OpenGL ES), now to metion that WebGL, CSS Transforms, and O3D are quickly becoming web standards
What more can you ask for
I guess its time to go back to webos and dump my iphony..... on second thought ill wait a bit for iphone 4.0 see whats in store from apple.
ugh no need for speed in the app catalog yet..
Does anyone see these apps in the catalog yet?
remember iPhone game centric ads? marketing is critical.
Not me, da**it!
I think the app catalog update might be happening now. My app catalog is taking a long time to refresh...
Nope. No such luck. Not yet, anyway.
check the catalog its all there now!!!
I don't see NFS?
yeah !!!!!!!!
I wonder if these new 3d games have multitouch.. I know that all previous apps did not support it... can someone download a game and post any details...maybe a video????
Tight!
still no games i hate waiting
The apps are now in the catalog
I confirm that!! Kinda expensive though lol
flippin expensive games!!! what gives!
expensive compared to the .99 cent web apps, but compared to real 3d games, on the pc, ds, or iphone, its not bad.
Yeah this isn't that bad, actually. This is what I'd expect to pay.
Woot, 15 new apps in teh catalog....and GAMES!!!!!
DL asphalt 5 rightnow :)
How much do you think these new games will cost...and will playing them kill my stock battery??
EXPENSIVE!!! (about $7.00 each), and Yes it WILL kill your battery.
Asphalt 5 looks amazing! downloading it now
LOL, the description mentions iphone and ipod touch, but not the pre! Guess that shows the power of a direct port with native/c/C++ access!
I see The Sims 3 and Monopoly, but not the one i want... Need For Speed. Still updating mabey?
EA Sudoku! One of my wish apps...yay! Palm, you made me so happy today.
"Enjoy Sodoku" (paid) is really good. There's a free version too so you can test it out. Free game limits you to one per level per day I think. I never really played much before a few weeks ago and it's great for teaching the proper (and necessary strategies). Not sure how it'd stack up against the EA game, but this version meets all my needs.
WHAT?!? No Need for Speed in the app catalog...DOH
$10 for sims.. hhmmm wish it was like $5 or $6
agreed, the sims isn't that fun... it gets really boring quickly you can only instruct your sim to eat pee and sleep so often before it's old
Damn, I just dropped $10 on that bad boy. I mostly bought it just to show off to my iPhone and Droid Friends. haha
I also wanted to get some reveiws done on some of these.
where's NFS?
Real question will be how well these games perform on the Pre. Looks great but without any good performance, it will suck for sure. Hope they perform well. Can't wait to start seeing the reviews.
in the description for asphalt 5, it says I can play any song from my iphone or ipod touch while playing the game. since I don't have either of these, does this mean I cant listen to music? heh
Description was probably made for iPhone etc.
Possibly a stupid question, but is Asphalt 5 the racing game people have been referring to as Need for Speed? I see the other games mentioned in the presentation, but not NFS...
No.
http://www.palm.com/us/products/software/mobile-applications.html
Didn't think so. :) Okay, thanks!
Damn it. Epic games showed a demo of the UE for Tegra at Nvidia keynote. Byebye UE on pre then :'(
Not necessarily... the Zune HD has an nVidia chip in it - so what ELSE would you expect them to use to show it off?
How much are they?
there is a webos update 1.3.5.1
you're late with that one lol, it's been out for a while
oh must have missed it but after I did that the games showed in app catolog so if you are missing the new games make sure you download the webos.
That has been out a day or two now.
i'm not upset b these prices... Especially when you consider the samll install base for the pre, and the lack of competition in the game space. ithe ecosystem will surely level itself out soon.
I'm getting golf. I'll be like Tiger in no time -minus money, fame, scandal, busted face... well you get the idea. YAY
Just got myself Scrabble. :) Don't see Need For Speed in the catalog yet.
Scrabble looks interesting, but the options are a bit confusing. You can play 2-player, but I don't see any option for online play. (Would be nice if you could update your Scrabble moves on Facebook, too, but maybe that's just a pipe dream. :))
Scrabble is $4 MORE than in the apple app catalog.... thats some BS i'll wait till the price comes down..... but on the other hand i totally bought Oregon Trail :)
How is it? That's the only one I'm tempted to buy atm.
@filmpunk - You have died of dysentery. :)
Waiting for Asphalt to finish downloading. Servers must be getting hammered.
Now that there are games, I wonder how long until some unscrupulous and enterprising soul starts up an "appulo.us" for Pre. The iPhone has a big enough install base to handle some casual copyright infringement but if Pre games are easily installed without paying then it could spell trouble.
Let's Golf $6
Monopoly $7
The Sims $10
Asphalt 5 $7
Scrabble $7
Oregon Trail $6
X-Plane $10
Tetris $7
Sudoku $5
So... they demo need for speed... say its coming out today. And its not there lol. Classic.
Jeesh, give it a rest. The fact that they are already rolling out real apps is suprise enough. They probably have more but instead of slamming the servers with all of them, they are trickling them out. If they say NFS will be out today then I am sure it will be out today. They never said exactly what time today it would be released.
Yes master heh. Im not being greedy. I wanted to pay for it LOL.
It will prolly be there later
Been waiting for a long time for these games. Doom and Quake only got me so far. ;) Later on when theirs a million downloads for these games you can be like I was one of the first to get it. I'm cool.........
Oh, this was why my phone froze and would not reset this morning.
I kind of regret buying a psp go now...
Wow, your the first person I am aware of that bought one. You couldn't pay me to take a PSP Go. I'd rather have the first versions.
Asphalt 5 gameplay is amazing....smoooooth and very responsive.....I love my pre noww!!!!
Awesome, thats what I wanted to hear.
I like Asphalt, too, but I suck at driving it! :) Tilting to steer takes some getting used to. :)
well 2 hrs after.... still no nfs
NFS has been in the app catalog for some time now. Back out of the app catalog and try again. Also have you updated the WebOs?
I think it's extremely ironic that now we have top-notch, modern 3D gaming on our Pre's and I'm sitting here waiting for the one other thing this new PDK makes possible: A good Commodore 64 emulator! :)
Hell, I may just go home tonight and port Frodo over myself.
Im sure half the commenters here are scratching there heads thinking to themselves... Whats a Commodore 64? I thought SNES's were for emulators.
lol probably, i would love a C64 emulator on my pre.
Haha, you might be right :)
And actually, I didn't read fully what Palm had to say: public beta isn't coming until March of the PDK, so I can't do it tonight anyway. I may have early access available to me like I do for other things, not sure, but barring that I guess it'll have to wait.
I don't suppose any of these are coming to canada, right?
what do these games to do memory????
can someone please post a youtube video...i want to see how it looks before i by all of the them...lol
Awesome news! Too bad I live in Canada... come on paid apps!
So after 10 min. of playing Asphalt I paused the game and try to open the app catalog and got the "i had too many open cards message" ( which is weird because the game was the only card ) so i closed the game and opened the catalog. Then when i tried to play the game...it would close on me right before i started driving, and now i get a message saying "application caused an error". I am restarting my phone and charging it since it was low in battery, that sucks since the game was really fun! Let me know if this is happening to anyone else.
Can someone from EA take 5 minutes and re-write the descriptions for the games. I think it is an insult for it to say "play this on your iPhone or iPod Touch" when we are clearly using a Palm device...I mean it is in the Palm WebOS App Store for goodness sake!
i second that motion itz a slap in da face
"Palm expects webOS to be one of the first mobile platforms to support the full Flash Player in the web browser."
and there goes the battery...
Need for Speed and Brain Challenge just appeared in the catalog.
$9.99.... that's pricy.
Now the question is.. NFS for 9.99 or Asphalt 5 for 6.99? Any thoughts?
Well it took a while to download and install, but X-Plane is pretty sweet!
I just bought Asphalt 5 and played it and Im still downloading NFS and Lets Golf.. I have to say, I am very impressed with the performance on Asphalt 5.. Its a fun racing game, seems like a blast... Finally some new things to do on the Pre than play hangman!
Anybody try NFS yet? 10 bucks isn't a meeelion dollars, but money's tight these days. :)
Exciting day today in Pre-land!
This is a joke right?
finally have apps worth paying for, and I get a "couldn't add credit card" message!!!!
Someone please tell me how NFS and X-Plane look!!!!
To die for!
Absolutely gorgeous! (NFS)
I just bought it, but I can't try it. I get "Sorry, Too Many Cards" when I try to launch with no other cards open. I guess I get to wait several minutes while I reboot the phone.
When are they going to fix the "Sorry..." error and the ridiculously long boot times?
Happen to me as well! everything is peachy after reboot though.
need for speed looks great. gameplay is really smooth. i am surprised. seems fun.
i only played scrabble for 30 seconds so take this with a grain of salt, but the controls seem very odd.
bought sims 3 but havent tried it yet. (edit)... wtf. i have no cards open, try to open sims 3 and it says "sorry, too many cards".
NFSU worked after a reboot. It looks very good for a phone game, but the controls aren't great. The car always accelerates unless you tap to brake. The steering is pretty smooth though.
The actual races are pretty fun. There are lots of ways to earn points through, drifts, nudges, etc.
Surprisingly, the load times are pretty quick.
There are lots of options for customizing cars and it seems like there are quite a few cars to unlock.
Scrabble is pretty good too.
Have to disagree.
The controls are great. If you don't want the car to always accelerate unless you hit the break, take it out of "auto accelerate" mode.
Go to 'Settings' and you can turn it off and also change the sensitivity.
EDIT: I was talking about Ashphalt5.....not sure about NFS.
Come on Palm release the App Catalogue in Europe before March !!!
I was able to download Monopoly but it keeps crashing. All of the other downloads keep failing. I've tried on EVDO and WIFI and I've tried rebooting. I keep getting the message that the download failed without any other explanation.
Any help.
Asphalt 5 is amazing. Played sims for a couple of minutes, graphics are great! Now time to try out some of the other ones. Spending a bit to much money... oh well.
any one get these on pixi? Palm pixi support???
palm pixi support??? No games yet for pixi users
is it just me or is it taking forever to dl, purchased and waiting....waiting...waiting...and I even did it over WiFi. Damn NFS
This is what I have been waiting for. Asphalt 5 is awesome. love racing games!!!
I downloaded Asphalt 5 and am completely amazed! no lag and everything works perfectly. extremely easy and fun. I like it better than my daughters DSI. The steering is extemely responsive and can be changed in the options menu. I had an error like others have stated but a quick restart and everything is fine. loving this!
Well, I experienced my first crash.
I was playing NFSU with the phone plugged in to my PC and it looks like it just ran out of battery and the phone shut off with no warning.
I knew this was going to be a battery hog, but this is kind of ridiculous. Now I get to wait around for a while the phone charges enough to start up.
My Pre has been saying that it's about to shut down, only to come back up with 60-70% battery, very odd, almost sounds like this problem. I installed NFS and have been getting tons of crashing, I can't even make it through a whole race. Restarting now and hoping for better luck. On the battery side of things, it seems like NFS is less of a battery hog than doing GPS/music streaming (assuming efficient CPU/GPU and big draw on data/GPS analysis). As long as the crashes stop, I will be VERY happy with this.
**What happens to my games and saved-game files when I reformat my phone?
They should be linked to your Palm profile. When you reformat, it reinstalls the apps taken from the store.
Asphalt 5 is Awesome! Sooo fun! Did get a couple "too many cards" error, but now it just keeps closing unexpectedly on me! :( i am trying to restart now
just restarted my phone and is working GREAT!!!! I love my pre! Way to go palm huge steps today!
has anyone have both asphalt and NFS and if so which on is better? I want to get one of them but don't want to get both.
I dunno about Asphalt, but NFSU seems to crash a lot. Like a LOT for me.
I just downloaded Need For Speed Undercover and it was almost 128 mb (127840k) to be exact. It did take a few minutes to DL, but I was able to do other things while it did it in the back ground. This definitely took some space on the Pre. It runs very well, plus I was switching from Precentral.net to the Messaging App, YouTube and NFSU. Im really glad they solved the App Limit Issue (API). I've had it since the first week and I'm still happy. :)
Wow, this is awesome! I bought 2 games (monopoly and need for speed) as soon as they were available on the catalog. I am impressed with the visual quality of the games.
Wish they were actually NEW games instead of ports of the iphone version. I already have most of these on my ipodtouch so it doesn't interest me. There should be games made specifically for pre that uses gestures or something. I am still glad that they are moving forward though and hope to see more phone specific games.
Now lets just wait for some Popcap!
pixi owner...WHERE IS MY GAMES!
It's "Where ARE my games?" Notice the word "are" and the question mark instead of the exclamation point?
The games all crash all the time. I feel like we all got ripped off. It seems like alot of people are experiancing this problem.
Cool article. Palm definitely is going to grow a ton this year with their app and game development. Check out http://www.PhoneFreelancer.com for freelance palm development jobs. Free service.
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