I was having a conversation with Serko from MobileDivide over the weekend, and he pointed me to this MacDaily News posting.  They’re claiming that Apple has told retailers to clear out all existing inventory of AV cables for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  The exsisting cables are $50 each, one for SD and one for HD playback.  The existing iPhone’s HD playback is also limited to 480P.

In the announcement, Apple says “supports multiple AV connections, just like the Xbox 360.”  I’m assuming this is not going to be a simple HDMI cable, as SD tv’s wouldn’t support HDMI.  I’d guess there will be a cable which can connect to the iPhone, and a separate dock sold as another component.

So what’s the big deal about a fricking cable?  I mean, sure it’s exciting to be able to go to a friends house, pull out your iPhone, and queue up your choice of 20 movies.  Heck, all your friends also have iPhones, so let’s just see who’s got what movies and pick the best one to watch.

Nope, the big deal is the iPhone app store, specifically games.  Sure the Xbox 360 has downloadable games, ranging from free demos to $5 – $20 for downloadable games.  The Wii also has downloadable games, going for FREE – $4 – $20.  The Sony Playstation 3 can also download games, I think.  Leave a comment. : )

Even at $4, there’s a bigger barrier to purchasing vs 99c games on the iPhone.  Seriously, if a 99c game sucks, no big deal, just give it a bad review, and download another one.  If you’re spending $10 on a game, that’s Lunch, but a $1 game is more like a tip for a cup of coffee.  An Easy Decision.

Don’t forget that the iPhone also has an accelerometer, just like the Wii.  And WiFi and Bluetooth, like the Wii.  If there’s an AV dock that supports these wireless standards, we wouldn’t even be wired to the TV while playing.

I’m also thinking about how much fun the “offline” aspect of such games could be.  Just because you’re not sitting at home connected to the TV, the gaming could go on.  The iPhone can connect to the Internet just fine, even while you’re out and about.  Besides, at&t is upgrading the whole network to HSPA+ just for the next iPhone launch, so we needn’t worry about data speed issues.

So what would you buy?  A $400 console with $60 games that *might* be fun?  Or just pull the device out of your pocket, and play the same games you know are fun anytime, or *also* in HD resolution on your nice flat panel TV?

This is also overlooking the Media playback expected in the new iPhone.  With WiFi, there’s no reason you couldn’t just stream from your computer to the iPhone, so it wouldn’t even need giant build in storage.  Whether or not this will support MY movies, or just purchased iTunes movies is unknown.

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