At their keynote today Apple announced the new features of iOS 5. Most of these are not gaming related, but they have updated Game Center with some new features…
Game Center is a good social gaming service – it even boasts more users than Xbox live – but it does miss a few key features. It looks like Apple have been listening.
First up is the addition of photos, so you can now have a pic of yourself or any other image added to your profile, bringing an Avatar like feature to Game Center.
Next is the ability to compare how well you are doing with friends (something that Open Feint has done since the start) with achievement points.
Bolstering the social aspect, you can now see a list of friends of friends (much like Facebook) and even be recommended friends based on what games you like.
They have also added game recommendations, so based on what you play you will be given a list of other games that you might like, as well as the ability to purchase those games directly in the App.
The final, and biggest addition is turnbased game support out of the box. Before, developers had to hard code that themselves and manage it, now it’s simply an API to add to any game.
For gaming fans the keynote was pretty disappointing, especially without any mention of new hardware and more specifically the next iPhone. This will no doubt come in a separate event in the next few months.
