The iPad, Apple’s new love toy, was recently announced as the next “boon” for Apple, now that they’ve successfully penetrated the phone and mobile gaming market. Naturally, like almost every company, they are thinking bigger, better, faster, and more powerful for their newest device, which not only promises to be a step in between a phone and a laptop, but is also promising to be a great new portable gaming device.

Well, I’m hear to tell you that’s probably not going to happen. And the simple reason lies within our cover picture above (click to enlarge).

Before I explain, I will say that Apple has definitely proven themselves in the gaming market. They took their iPod line and launched something that I never, ever expected, a true portable gaming system that could not only match Sony and Nintendo, but could actually beat them in many ways. It truly is remarkable how gaming adept the iPhone and iPod Touch are.

Now fast forward to the release of the iPad. Apple’s newest can play all the same games that the iPod Touch can — despite a bit of pixelation — so this should be seen as a boon for the device right? Not really. You see, on damn near every game I’ve ever played on my iPod Touch I’ve held the device in a certain way. If it was a multi-touch game I would hold the device much like this:

In fact, it’s pretty much the same way I hold my PSP. If it’s a single touch interface then I’d hold the device with a single hand with the other handling all touch movements, similar to the way I hold a DS, actually. Like so:

This method of control works when using a mobile gaming device because… well they are small, lightweight, and have their weight evenly distributed. If even one of these things weren’t true gaming on these devices would not be preferential, it would be annoying.

Now let’s re-examine the iPad. While I can’t really comment on the weight, or weight distribution of the device, I can tell you right now that the size is absolutely not optimized for gaming. Take another look at our cover picture — beg pardon for the sloppy Photoshop job. As you can see that’s a person’s hands wrapped around the iPad in a similar function as what somebody would do with the iPhone/iPod Touch. Now if that person were holding an iPhone/iPod Touch their thumbs (the two primary modes of interaction with many games on the service) would be able to touch any part of the screen. This enables many games to have a fully functioning user interface that allows for advanced controls, menus, and buttons that otherwise wouldn’t be possible without.

Now apply that same idea to the iPad (as pictured) and you’ll instantly notice that the thumbs now only have access to the bottom two corners of the device. Worse still, if the game is a one-handed game (ala Peggle or Plants vs. Zombies) you are then stuck holding a 10 inch device with a single device. Now, I don’t care if the device weighs less than a pound, it’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable to hold. It’s simple logistics, really.

Now some of you may be thinking: “well what about games that are made exclusively for the iPad?” Games that really take hold of the power of the iPad and include these same logistics to make for a better ease of gaming. That’s a good argument. Games tailor-made for the iPad will probably address these issues and at that point it won’t be such an issue, however, how many of these games do you really think will exist?

Apple is promising developers the ability to have their games spread across the already wildly popular iPhone/iPod Touch platform as well as the iPad. While iPad development may eventually get to the point where developing exclusively for that system may be worthwhile, the allure of 20+ million more units is hard to ignore. Bottom line, even future games that come out for the platform won’t have much of a reason to not optimize their game for the iPhone/iPod Touch given the much larger market penetration and userbase.

I’m not saying there won’t be a few games exclusive to the iPad that won’t be jaw droppingly awesome, but I am saying that, for the most part, iPad gaming will not live up to Apple’s expectation. It’s the same basic reason why we don’t see a DS with a 10 inch screen or a PSP with a 10 inch screen. At some point, mobile gaming becomes more than a hassle than it’s worth.

Of course, I’m not clairvoyant. If I missed something, or if you know something I don’t then drop a line in the comments. I read em all!