Cool new gaming peripherals for iPhone, iPad in need of games to support them

What began as an April Fool's product from Think Geek has turned into an in-demand peripheral for the iPad and iPhone. With three new versions of the iCade being announced at this year's CES, however, there's just one thing this arcade-emulation peripheral might be missing.

Games.

The original iCade Arcade Cabinet, which turns your iPad into a personal arcade machine, is now joined by the iCade Core for the iPad, as well as the iCade Jr. and iCade Mobile for the iPhone and iPod Touch. The Core gives iPad games full size arcade controls and a dock to sit the iPad in where it will charge while acting as the screen on the unit. The iCade Jr. is a smaller version of the original iCade, giving the iPhone a little arcade cabinet housing of its own.

iPhone and iPod Touch gamers on the go will be especially interested in the iCade Mobile, which provides more substantial gaming controls for your device. It makes the iPhone look an awful lot like the PSP, and considering the effect that mobile gaming is having on handheld gaming, it's kind of a natural progression.

As Gizmodo points out, however, a crackdown by Apple that pulled the iMAME app from the App Store has left gamers in a bit of a bind, with only a handful of games playable on it. Users can still access many of Atari's classic games through the Atari Greatest Hits app, which gives access to games like Pac-Man, Centipede and Asteroids.

Hopefully, these new peripherals will encourage developers to support arcade-style gaming for mobile devices, helping players replicate the arcade gaming experience.

Check out our CES page for all the latest news coming out of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

(Screengrab from Ion Audio)