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The Star Trek fan’s equivalent of World of Warcraft is now playable thanks to an open beta test — and you don’t even have to spend $60 to buy the game as long as you can put up with a few bugs.

While Star Trek had become a struggling franchise in recent years, the blockbuster movie reboot from J.J. Abrams that hit last May renewed interest online and elsewhere.

Right now the easiest way to get a key to play Star Trek Online is to sign up for an account at gamer download mecca FilePlanet, but more choices will come.

Virtual worlds of one kind or another have always been part of Mashable’s territory, but positive news on that subject has been slowly drying up. Maybe Second Life didn’t turn out to be the revolution a lot of people hoped it would be, but that alternate reality social life is still going strong in the video gaming world.

Games like this are hardly mainstream, though. World of Warcraft’s creators brag that the game has 11.5 million subscribers, but quite a few of those gamers primarily play in Asian Internet cafes, which are a whole different world.

It’s true that there’s a chance Star Trek is now a big enough franchise to push social gaming in a persistent, virtual world into the limelight; interest is only going to grow with the recent announcement that a sequel is coming in the summer of 2012. But the problem is that this Star Trek Online game is actually based mostly on material from the ’90s TV series, not the new movie. It’s also PC-only software (most mainstream folks play on the web or on game consoles), so its niche is obvious: computer gaming geeks who grew up on The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space Nine.

Chances are you’ll be waiting a little while longer for these sorts of games to escape the hardcore gamer ghetto. It’s a pity, though. There’s a lot of potential there.

Tags: atari, beta, cryptic studios, gaming, MMO, mmorpg, Star Trek, star trek online, video games, virtual world, world of warcraft

Apple has both quietly and not-so-quietly been going about the business of tackling the portable gaming market. Perhaps presaged all the way back to the original iPod’s hidden easter egg game of Brick, the iconic and primarily music-playing device has acknowledged the powerful role of fun on a portable device.

Of course, with the advent of the App Store ecosystem and the iPhone/iPod touch lines of hardware, Apple’s ability to go head to head with the likes of Sony and Nintendo went up more than just a notch.

The “Funnest iPod ever” ad from about a year ago exemplifies Apple’s strategy in the marketplace. The focus is purely on fun, the target demographic extends way beyond the typical range of the “hardcore gamer,” and the easy over-the-air access to thousands of game titles is starting to set the iPod touch apart from Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PlayStation Portable.

Today’s Apple event continued the company’s push into more traditional portable gaming territory, with an entire segment from SVP Phil Schiller on how the iPod touch stacks up against the portable playing field.

Image courtesy of Engadget

Phil reminded everyone that the PSP and DS have “no multi-touch, expensive games, and no app store.” As compared to the mostly sub-$10 pricing of iPod touch/iPhone games, typical handheld titles for those two consoles can run from $25 to $40 a pop.

Speaking of titles, Phil shared an interesting statistic about the number of games available on all 3 platforms. Here’s how it stacks up:

Sony PSP: 607 games
Nintendo DS: 3,680 games
Apple iPhone OS: 21,178 games

Wow. Even given that a large percentage of those iPhone/iPod touch games are relatively simple and casual titles, it’s still an impressive number. And with some full-featured AAA titles already out (take Civilization Revolution’s faithful translation of the console version of the game as a prime example) and on deck as well, the iPhone OS ecosystem is looking impressively like a viable handheld gaming experience even to the more hardcore gaming set Sony and Nintendo regularly compete to win over.

Schiller’s segment included a number of game demos as well, with Gameloft’s upcoming first-person shooter named Nova (pictured, below) looking very Halo-like, with stunning graphics and excellent framerate. Phil said much of what’s coming next to iPod touch gaming is possible because they’ve built-in support for OpenGL ES 2.0, “great for those next-generation games.” Blockbuster publishers Ubisoft and Electronic Arts also shared the stage to demonstrate two franchises already hugely popular on consoles, Assassin’s Creed and Madden ‘10.

With both established major console publishers and insanely talented independent development teams all lined up to make games for Apple’s platform, Sony and Nintendo had better be concerned. The latter has already indicated that Apple’s iPhone ecosystem is having an impact on its business. Sony seems to be a little bit slower in understanding the market shift, or at least continues to put on a brave bluster in public.

What do you think: is the iPhone OS ecosystem giving traditional handheld gaming a run for its money? Have you already or would you consider the iPod touch or iPhone as your handheld gaming rig of choice?

Tags: apple, handhelds, iphone, iphone os, iPod Touch, nintendo ds, playstation, portable gaming, Sony PSP