IPHONE 3.0: NGMOCO SHOW OFF NEW FPS, TOUCH PETS DOGS MICROTRANSACTIONS

3.17.2009

I suspect we’ll be hearing much more about this soon, but at Apple’s ongoing conference announcing and demonstrating the features of the new iPhone 3.0 OS, ngmoco’s Neil Young has just showed off what the changes mean for the games sphere.

In particular, Young showed the iPhone’s long-promised and now official push notifications integrated with Stumptown Game Machine‘s virtual pet sim Touch Pets Dogs. The game has promised to be a social experience since it was first announced, and Young showed the game’s new ability to pop-up pet play-date invites in real time, outside the game itself.

Ngmoco have also just announced a new online multiplayer first person shooter, LiveFire, including, quips engadget, in-game chat.

Both games will take full advantage of iPhone 3.0’s other major new feature: the availability of new downloadable content purchasable entirely in-app, demonstrated by new custom clothes packs for your Touch Pets, and, apparently, new weapons for LiveFire bought on the fly while you play.

The latter, especially, is somewhat of a game-changer for the device: even though Apple has announced that only paid apps will be allowed to charge for in-game DLC (which seamlessly uses your same iTunes account for the transaction), the new feature could be a boon for the type of microtransaction-based games that have increasingly dominated the casual PC space — sell the framework for 99 cents, make that several times over with new custom content.

Touch Pets Dogs home [ngmoco, photo snippets via engadget]

Previously:
Ngmoco: Rolando sequel coming, Touch Pets Dogs announced – Offworld