Japanese game developers making googly eyes at iPhone

As a lifetime console gamer, it probably comes as no surprise that I have a certain affinity for games made in Japan. Seriously, give me a single-player Japanese RPG over the American equivalent any day of the week.

Given this, the news that more Japanese game developers want to develop on the iPhone has me giddy as a schoolboy! And I've never been giddy, even when I was a schoolboy.

Looks like Kojima Productions was just the beginning.

(Credit: GameSpot)

CasualGaming.biz reported Thursday on a survey conducted by Japanese middleware developer CRI. The survey polled 102 Japanese game developers (individuals, not companies).

Eighteen percent of those surveyed had already released games on the platform, while 16 percent were currently working on titles. Another 87 percent said they were interested in developing for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

As for the business reasons respondents cited for developing on the platform, 64.7 percent said the capability to release simultaneously in more than 80 countries was most appealing. Also, 55.9 percent said it was the size of the market, and 42.2 percent chose the ease of purchasing from iTunes as the best reason to develop on iPhone.

From a development perspective, the responses were decidedly different. The iPhone's portability and its touch screen were most appealing from a development standpoint, with 71.6 percent of respondents choosing each as the No. 1 reason. Also, 55.9 percent said it was the phone's multitouch capability.

With news like this, as well as Capcom's plans to launch more than 10 new iPhone games in 2009, it's no wonder Nintendo chief, Satoru Iwata, is starting to acknowledge the iPhone as a possible threat to the DS.

According to a story on Kotaku, Iwata recently stated "I do not imagine that iPhone will dominate the Nintendo DS market at once. My impression as the person who has used iPhone is, it is very attractive but, frankly, I did not feel that it was designed to be appreciated by a wide variety of people like how Nintendo has been designing its products."

Yes, the iPhone definitely does not have mass market potential /sarcasm.