Is The iPhone Getting A New ‘Premium’ Games Store?

There are hundreds of games on the iPhone at the moment. Problem is, most of them are awful, little more than rubbish flash games with a US$0.99 price tag.

According to a report on PocketGamer, however, Apple may be looking at a way to get around this, by dividing the App Store’s games into two separate sections: one for shitty $0.99 titles, one for “premium” games.

And what constitutes a “premium” game? They’ll be games priced at $19.99, and they’ll be restricted to polished, “proper” efforts by proper, big-name publishers.

If this pans out, it’d be a smart move by Apple. While a lot has been made of the iPhone’s potential to compete against Nintendo and Sony in the portable space, up til now, it’s struggled to really cement itself as a go-to gaming device, with most of even the biggest-name games suffering from short lifespans and technical woes.

But a $20 store would encourage bigger games from bigger developers. Which is exactly what the iPhone and iPod Touch need to really get them in the game.

Rumour: Apple planning $19.99 games section on App Store [PocketGamer, via Gizmodo]