Speed... Got To Have It!

Making games run as quickly as possible is normally a desirable thing, unless you want folk to laugh at you for all the wrong reasons. On the PS3 and 360 you know exactly how quickly the game is going to run for your customer, because you've got exactly the same hardware as they do, and you get to spend most of the game's development time fretting like a top class shredder about it. 

Speed - Get it wrong and you're in trouble!

On Android you don't have the same luxury; there's a broad range of phones out there now, going from slow to awesome. Right now I'm working on a game where speed of response and slick performance is going to matter, you're going to be shooting and blasting and destroying - it's a good old fashioned shoot-em-up... almost. The game has to be as quick as possible on as many handsets as possible, but where's the line? Where do you say, "sorry son, you've got to upgrade." 

There is a term I once heard which went something like "no one will ever say it's the best game that can run on a 486". Wise words, because I doubt reviewers use two year old phones.