Riding high off the impressive success of Super Monkey Ball during the App Store’s 2008 debut (and the hype surrounding its sequel, Super Monkey Ball 2), SEGA’s Ethan Einhorn recently discussed their success with the iPhone platform, which he attributes to the ” gaming trojan horse” aspect of introducing their products to the Apple crowd. In an interview with IGN, Einhorn recently said:

“It’s reached out to a huge cross section of the community that is not buying a device just for games. So when you have something that’s this powerful — that’s easily competitive with the other handsets that are on the market — and you can put games on it that have full 3D graphics, you’re able to satisfy the gamer audience that we know is there but also reach out to a totally new audience.”

He adds:

“There are some really, really neat things coming down the pipe. SEGA is very seriously committed to making great iPhone games. And also looking at what we can do building great games from the ground up. That’s something that’s really important to us on our premium top-tier games. Building for this device specifically and making sure that the experience is great and ties well to the control scheme.”

And speaking of Super Monkey Ball, SEGA has announced that Super Monkey Ball 2 will be rollin’ in time for the holiday season. The smash follow up adds some improvements to the original, including local Wi-Fi access, new minigames, new levels, and improved controls and graphics. No price has been announced, but it’ll likely be the same as its ground breaking predecessor, at $9.99.

IGN

TouchArcade
via Joystiq