I'm not upgrading to the iPhone 3GS, and thanks to AT&Ts pricing, I'm not alone. But owning an old iPhone 3G is going to hurt when iPhone-3GS-only games come out. Luckily, Ngmoco has no plans to start that trend.
While yes, the new iPhone 3GS brings twice the RAM, a faster processor and better 3d imaging to the table, Ngmoco isn't going to make games that are unable to run on the regular old iPhone 3G. This is the Rolando and Star Defense developer's plan:
"We're scaling the imagery based on the performance of the device, so if you've got a 3GS, the game's going to look better and run at a great frame rate. And if you're on an iPhone 3G, the game will look a little bit different, but the frame rate will be the same, 'cause obviously performance and speed are actually an important part of a cool first person shooter gameplay experience."
Just like PC games! Makes sense to us. But this is but one developer (albeit a great one); don't expect this to be a path all devs take. Inevitably, there'll be a port of some slick game that they claim they just can't get to run on the wussy iPhone 3G hardware. And it will suck so very much. [MTV Multiplayer via Kotaku]