iPod: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition

Buy iPod Games

The iTunes Store first started selling games when the original video iPods appeared on the scene. There are now dozens of titles for sale designed to work with older video iPods as well as the iPod Classic and video-playing Nanos. (The Touch has its own outlet for games, described over there on the next page. Feel free to move on, Touch owners.)

Gaming classics like Ms. PAC-MAN, Tetris, and Sonic the Hedgehog are among the offerings. Newer titles like Spore Origins, Sudoku, Bejewled, Peggle, and several Sims games are also in stock. And there are video versions of old kitchen-table favorites like Monopoly, Uno, Scrabble, and Mah-jong.

Buying and downloading a game is just like buying anything else in the Store. Once you buy a game, it shows up in the iPod Games library in the Source list (click a purchased title to see accompanying directions). After you sync the game to your iPod, you can find it in iPod→Extras→Games. When you start the game, your iPod's scroll wheel and center button are transformed into game controls.

Unlike music or video files, however, you can play iPod games only on the iPod. They don't, alas, work in iTunes.