Apple ups ante for iPhone gaming – hires XBOX exec

Anybody who said Apple wasn’t serious about gaming can swallow their pundit nuggets right now: They just hired Richard Teversham, Xbox Europe’s (now former) senior director of business, insights and strategy. It’s especially interesting when you take into consideration Apple’s other recent major hire, ATI’s former graphics CTO, the guy who designed the GameCube’s graphics card. For the love of all that is holy and Jobsian, however, it doesn’t mean they’re going to make a MacBoxStationCube 1080—the iPhone (and maybe that tablet/pad thing) is Apple’s gaming platform. 15 of the top 20 paid apps of all time are games. There are over 9,000 games in the App Store. And there are 37 million iPod touches and iPhone out there—still below the PSP’s 50 million and the DS’s 100 million, but consider these are consoles that have been out at least twice as long as the iPhone platform. – From Gizmodo