'Pokemon'-like 'MinoMonsters' heading to iPhones

[...] he was about to take on a much more serious challenge: an effort to disrupt the enormous global Pokemon franchise, which has generated an estimated $24 billion in sales without yet arriving on smart phones. Buckley's idea was to create a "Pokemon"-like game, called "MinoMonsters," that would bring the experience of collecting, trading and battling monsters to the iPhone and iPod Touch. In January, he became the youngest person ever accepted to the prestigious Y Combinator accelerator in Mountain View - where founder Paul Graham called him "the Harry Potter of startups." Nintendo, which owns the Pokemon brand, has resisted bringing its titles to mobile devices like smart phones for fear that doing so would undercut sales of its own mobile devices and games, which it sells at a premium. Games for Apple's iOS and Google's Android operating system typically are free or cost only a dollar or two, whereas games for Nintendo's handheld 3DS device cost $40. "With just how popular the iOS platform is, and how people are playing games right now, it seems like the perfect opportunity," said John Davison, vice president of programming for video game news site Game-Spot. [...] competition for gamers' dollars is fierce - particularly on iOS, where it can be difficult to become a breakout hit unless an app grabs a place on the store's list of top downloads and stays there.