Twenty bucks certainly isn't an outrageous amount to pay for a portable game, if you're playing a Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) on Nintendo DS title. In fact, with a few exceptions, new releases for those devices typically cost $30 or more.

But games for Sony and Nintendo handheld systems demand a higher price because they command a bigger budget and feature expanded production values--more complex game mechanics, higher-quality graphics and sound effects. With a few exceptions here and there, most of the games for the iPhone are much smaller-budget productions.

Even the games produced by some top companies in the iPhone space based around recognizable name brands and game titles may have an origin on another platform, typically another phone system. So at least some of the work--art assets, game logic--is in a form that's portable to the iPhone, and therefore has a lower production cost.

That's not to suggest that the iPhone, either in current or future incarnations, isn't up to the task to compete with Nintendo and Sony. It certainly could, over time. It's just that the economy that's already begun to develop around the iPhone doesn't seem to favor that right now.

I conducted a straw poll of a few iPhone game developers I know--nothing scientific, by any stretch--and most agreed that what they've read and heard about this new premium store sounds like bunk.