Oh No! iPhone Gets Paid DLC

Kris Erickson • Mar 17, 2009 • Comments (1)

Apple is very proud of their svelte little phone. The device has conquered markets that, as recently as 5 years ago, nobody would have deemed possible for the Cuppertino, California PC manufacturer. Now, however, Apple has its eyes set on the lucrative handheld gaming market, and they are promoting the gaming attributes of the iPhone in a big way.

While the games may not be much of a threat to the PSP in terms of actual gameplay, the downloadable App Store is a revolution in digital retail, leaving Sony and Nintendo scrambling to release downloadable content services of their own for the PSP and DS. But today we learned that Apple is still one step ahead of our favorite platform, this time with the addition of paid DLC functionality for games. The upcoming firmware release version 3.0 will add paid content functionality through the App Store as well as local Bluetooth multiplayer gaming.

Many of you, like us, may not view this as a good thing: most paid DLC just seems like an excuse to charge extra for something that could have been on the disk. Ahem, Capcom, we are shooting accusatory stares in your direction.

Still, it is incredible what Apple has been able to accomplish, at least when it comes to buying, downloading, and then paying some more for games. If only they had some face buttons on the thing, the iPhone might actually become a respectable gaming device.