By now I am sure some of you have seen the iControlPad for the iPhone, and iPod Touch, in case you haven’t its a third party device that connect via the dock and turns your iPhone into a PSP look like giving you buttons to use with games on the platform. So far the makers have stated that it is working with the emulators they developed for the platform.

This sounds great for emulators, but can this make the iPhone a serious platform for hardcore gamers?

Of course there are a lot of limitations with the iPhone, for starters there are no ways to upgrade hard drive space or add in a memory unit, Apple probably won’t support this device, and the most important question, will companies make games on the device for hardcore gamers?

The answer to this is probably no. Now don’t get me wrong the iPhone could be a great platform for games, but lets keep the games causal. Some game genres won’t feel right on the iPhone, most notably FPS but some will feel right at home like racing games with the tilt control and from the demo Super Monkey Ball looks awesome.

Will the iPhone be a competitor against the DS or PSP? Probably not anytime soon, but it could be the next great gaming device, only time will tell.