Apple's Metal Opens the Door for BioShock on iOS Next Month
In one segment of our WWDC 2014 report we noted that Apple's press release stated that "Gaming on iOS takes a huge leap forward in iOS 8 with Metal, a new graphics technology that maximizes performance on the A7 chip. With its dramatic 10 times improvement in draw call speed, Metal enables leading game providers for the first time to bring console-class 3D games to mobile devices." Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering made a point during his keynote to look at what Electronic Arts was doing with Apple's new Metal technology: Let's start with EA that took their console level title "Plants vs. Zombies" and brought it over to iOS." This is something that they never thought would be possible." Well, this is going to get exciting as one of the first huge console style games coming to iOS in September is BioShock: Welcome to Rapture.
According to a new Time report out this morning, "the original BioShock is going to be an iOS game, and you won't have to wait for it until the end of this year or into 2015: 2K says it'll be available "as a premium priced mobile game" later this summer, so by Monday, September 22. It'll work with the iPad Air, iPad Mini 2, iPad 4 and iPhone 5 forward, though nothing earlier.
It's not a pared back port, either, but the whole shebang, with 'optimized touch controls' and support for MFi (Made for iPhone) game controllers."
The timing of September opens the door for this to be officially launched at Apple's iPhone event or for an Apple TV event if it's separate. BioShock is one my favorite games of all time. Its graphics are rich and will be a great test for Apple's new Metal Technology to shine.
This is going to be an exciting launch – and likely only one of many to debut this fall. One of Federighi's WWDC keynote slides below shows us that top gaming studios are on board to have their console games ready for iOS.
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