Joystiq reported earlier this week on the release of Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes - Encore, a new iPhone game available in paid [App Store, $9.99] and lite [App Store, Free] versions from developer Square Enix. Included in the report is mention that the new iPhone games contain touch-enabled versions of both the original Song Summoner that was a popular click wheel iPod game and Song Summoner 2, which was interestingly never released, reportedly because Apple has abandoned the click wheel game format.
Rather than being a simple touchscreen-enabled port of the original click wheel game, the iPhone Song Summoner contains both Song Summoner and Song Summoner 2, which was never released due to Apple ending support for click wheel games.
Apple continues to offer a number of iPod Click Wheel Games via the iTunes Store, but no new games have been released since Cake Mania 3 in February of this year. Apple introduced iPod Click Wheel Games alongside iTunes 7 in September 2006 and released a total of nearly 50 games over the following two and half years.
While it is certainly no surprise that Apple has focused its energies on App Store applications for the iPhone and iPod touch that offer a significantly more advanced user experience than click wheel-based games, to our knowledge Apple has never officially acknowledged that it has ceased to support new games for its traditional iPods.
