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iPhone 5S And 'Infinity Blade 3': A Match Made In Heaven

This article is more than 10 years old.

A screenshot showing combat in Infinity Blade. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apple announced the iPhone 5s today, a phone that by its designers' description, cannot possibly be described with enough superlatives. One thing is certain: it is beastly powerful for something as big as a pack of cards. And so, when it came time to demo the device that Apple claims is twice as fast as its predecessor, it's only natural that the company chose to use a video game. Epic Games also announced Infinity Blade 3 today, and impressed the audience with the PC-quality graphics it was able to eke out of the iPhone 5s.

When Apple first invented the modern smartphone market with the original iPhone, it became a major player in the gaming space almost by accident. The app store became one of the biggest marketplaces for games in the world, and the iPhone became one of the most popular consoles. It took a hands off approach for the most part, gradually acknowledging just how important entertainment had become on its flagship device. Last year, at the premiere of the iPhone 5, it used EA's Real Racing 3 to show off the new hardware.

Now, games like Infinity Blade are more important than ever for the iPhone, for one specific reason. This is when Apple finally split the line in two by releasing the iPhone 5C, a budget version of the main iPhone with less processing power and a plastic case. So why would the average human need the processing power associated with a top-of-the-line iPhone? Not for making phone calls, checking email or using the maps application of their choice. Apple of all companies knows the power of pretty things, and so it only makes sense to use one of the best-looking games (and thus, best-looking apps) on mobile devices to showcase the new processor.

Like the PC market before it, the smartphone market has reached the point where less expensive smartphones (iPhone 5C, in this case) are more than capable of handling every day-to-day task a user might assign to them. So like PC makers before them, phone designers will have to become more aggressive about justifying the need for more powerful processors. As Jason Evangelho pointed out, gamers have been crucial to a struggling PC market, and games could likewise prove important in the high-end phone market.