Apple has confirmed that its Game Center service will come as part of the new iOS 4.1 update, coming next week for iPhone and iPod Touch.

The Game Center seems like Apple's shot at bringing Xbox Live-like services to its increasingly gaming-focused iDevices. It's billed as a "social gaming network", and will bring with it the ability to add and invite friends, leaderboards, achievements and will power matchmaking for online multiplayer games.

As Apple demonstrated, sending invites to a friend makes their device display a Push Notification on screen, rather like receiving a text message.

The introduction of Game Center will work with new, more powerful iPhone/iPod Touch games, such as the graphically impressive Unreal Engine-powered action RPG 'Project Sword', which Apple compared to Fable 2 (see screenshots).

Apple made no mention of previous reports which claimed the Game Center would not be available to the iPhone 3G and second-gen iPod Touch or older so consider that unconfirmed.

iOS 4.1 will also bring with it much-requested bug fixes for iPhone 4, including the proximity sensor (which currently refuses to keep the screen shut off while the phone's pressed to your face), Bluetooth, and performance enhancements for the iPhone 3G.

It also adds High Dynamic Range photo-taking options, HD video uploads via WiFi and TV show rentals.

iOS 4.1 will be released as a free update next week.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/ar ... ?id=262622

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FYI...

This might also interest some of you:

GTA hits iPad next week

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars HD will be released on iPad on September 9, Rockstar has revealed.

The latest version of the game will boast nice new high-resolution graphics for the iPad's bigger screen, over 50 missions and "countless side activities".

You'll also be able to customise the soundtrack in the game using music stored on your iPad, so you can bump Dr. Dre as you blast around the top-down re-imagining of Liberty City.

GTA: Chinatown Wars was first released on DS to critical acclaim, but not overwhelming commercial success. The game was later released on PSP, minus the touch controls, then on iPhone and iPod Touch on which you'll be pleased to know it plays really well despite the lack of tactile buttons.

The iPad version will cost £5.99 on the App Store.

The Game Centre doesn't really interest me. I play the odd game while waiting for something, but wouldn't have the time to play against others...

It's only partly about 'live multiplayer'. It's also about having scoreboards for games for example, so you can see your friends scores in games and try to beat them. Even if you only play 5 minute puzzle games it'll still have some value. And it's free at the end of the day so...

Jon

What? Apple does gaming? When did that happen?

Not properly, only on phones

Again, why would I want to? I rarely play a full game and am not generally interested in scores, just wasting a bit of time, while waiting at the doctor's, for example.

My biggest frustration is "Driver". I just want to cruise around, but I have to complete all the missions, before I can open up the other areas (New York, LA). I don't care about the missions, I just want to drive the new cars in the new cities!

Anyone on here got an Xbox 360 and care to enlighten Dave about the evil that is Achievements .

Not tried it obviously, what with not having a suitable device, but:

http://www.cheatingdome.com/iphoneipod/ ... cheats.htm

Most games have cheats that let you do that.

^^ That seems to require a jailbroken iPhone. Not going to jailbreak my 'phone just for a cheat.

Care to enlighten me too?

OK, let's look at Tetris. You drop blocks, you score points when you fill rows. That's all well and good. Achievements on the XBox 360 and Trophies on the PS3 are prizes that aren't directly involved with the game. An achievement for Tetris would be 'line four long straight bars up in a row' or 'make a row thats entirely blue'. And you get a little fanfare noise and a graphic pops up in the corner of the screen. On their own, they're fun and a bit of a laugh. Some games have truly bizzare and brilliant achievements to get.

The killer feature, however, is that they are public. So if we both have Tetris, I can look at your Tetris record and see you've got the 'entirely blue row' achievement. But I haven't got that yet, so now I've got something else to do in the game, because I want to have the same achievements you've got. It also extends the game because even if you've finished what you might call the 'plot' of the game, you still haven't got all the achievements, so you've still got stuff to do. On the PS3, if you get all the achievements in a game you get a special platinum trophy to show off.

And these things accumulate. On the 360, every achievement is worth a number of points and the total of all the achievement points you have got so far is called your gamerscore. Obviously, for a lot of people, getting as high a gamerscore as possible is a genuine competitive thing. You can compare gamerscores with your friends, you can look at your friends and see whether you've got the same achievements as them in certain games... There are even people who buy games which, objectively, aren't very good because they are known to have achievements that are easy to get. They even have a nickname - 'achievement whores'.

All this kind of stuff is built into GameCenter, if games want to implement it. It makes 'being a gamer' into something which has a level of public achievement and friendly competition. For a lot of people, achievements are a big thing and the fact GameCenter has them is also a big thing. If you have no competitive streak or no friends, obviously this isn't going to matter to you at all but for a lot of gamers - basically the vast majority of people who have Xbox 360s and PS3s - having achievements means iOS gaming is suddenly a whole lot more interesting.

I've looked at Trophies out of curiosity, but I'll never be one of those people who bothers with it all (I find the alerts alone annoying in PS3 games)

It makes total sense for keeping people interested though