Games on the menu for iPhone and iPod Touch

EA's Spore and Sega's Monkey Ball confirmed for release as Apple unveils beta SDK and iPhone Developer Program.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said today he wants to create 'a vibrant third party developer community' for the iPhone and iPod Touch - and got the ball rolling by unveiling the new SDK for the touch-screen devices and naming EA and Sega as key firms already making games for the device.

The iPhone and iPod Touch Software Developer Kit arrives in beta form, debuting the features of the devices' version 2.0 firmware, due to arrive in June.

While Apple's focus is still predominantly on enterprise and non-games software, the device has attracted the support of Electronic Arts and Sega, who are preparing versions of their titles Spore and Super Monkey Ball for the platform. The games make use of the devices' touch-screen and tilt-sensor.

EA said a number of other games were also already in development also.

Apple, meanwhile, named another game due for the release - the internally developed Touch Fighter, a 3D space shooter, which it said was developed in just two weeks using the SDK.

The news follows speculation a few weeks ago that Apple was upping its games activity - and our own report exclusively revealing that it would remain focused around the iPod, rather than new devices or consoles.

“We’re excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch,” said Jobs.

“iPhone’s enterprise features combined with its revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface and advanced software architecture provide the best user experience and the most advanced software platform ever for a mobile device.”