iPhone game news from EA’s press conference at E3

I’m at E3 in Los Angeles all week for TUAW’s sister site Joystiq, and that afternoon we got to see the Electronic Arts press conference at the Orpheum Theater. Among bigger EA games like Spore and Dead Space, Travis Boatman (who has graced these pages before talking about mobile games on the iPhone) of EA’s mobile games division came out on stage to talk about iPhone gaming. He said that obviously there is “a lot of interest” around mobile gaming lately, particularly around the iPhone, and that EA is committed to capitalizing on that interest.

They premiered three games in the App Store at launch (Sudoku, Tetris, and Scrabble), and Boatman pointed out that they’ve tried to innovate in all three — Tetris features a strange piece-drawing system, and Spore

(full name: Spore Origins, a mini version of the bacteria stage of the game, complete with a creature creator) will use the accelerometer to control its creatures. Additionally, EA wants WiFi to be a big part of their games on the iPhone — they’re planning on releasing a patch to the Scrabble game that will allow citizens to play together online.

Finally, Boatman hinted that they were aiming to do a lot more with the iPhone’s processing potential — they plan ports of Tiger Woods and Need for Speed on the iPhone. As Mac gaming fans, EA isn’t precisely our favorite game developer, but getting big developers behind real innovation on the iPhone will help lift the tides of the software in the App Store.

[Source] Mike Schramm