Who could have predicted that the 80's game of Pong would spawn
a multi-billion dollar gaming industry complete with PCs, PDAs,
and wireless phones that are specifically designed to handle the
speed and graphics that today's games demand?
If you think that current gaming technology is hot then, as they
say, "you ain't seen nothing yet."
Wireless or mobile gaming is the future and the future is now.
2004 saw an explosion in mobile gaming technology which
redefined the mobile phone as a gaming device. Handsets capable
of displaying graphics equal in quality to the GameStations and
GameCubes of the 1990's were available everywhere, and game
developers like Synergetix and It's Alive! were on everyone's
radar screen.
Now, just a year later, Real-time multiplayer games, some
offering high-quality, 3D graphics, can be played over most
telecom networks at prices that won't put you in the poorhouse.
Never one to be too far behind the bleeding edge, even the Adult
Entertainment industry is turning out PDA and cell phone-based
games including gambling programs and a variety of role-based
and action games where lots of sexy women end up losing their
clothes. The graphics are, shall we say, stunning.
A peek under the technology hood
While the average gamer may be ignorant of the technology that
is driving the wireless gaming industry, the geeks among us are
very familiar with terms like J2ME, Symbian, and Brew; the
development and distribution platforms upon which the wireless
gaming industry has built its success.
J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) is a derivative of Sun
Microcomputer's JAVA development platform. J2ME is specifically
designed to build applications that run on portable and wireless
devices including cell phones and PDAs. It's also finding wide
acceptance among companies that develop applications for TV
boxes and many of the new embedded devices which are flooding
both the consumer and industrial markets.
BREW, another development language from QUALCOMM, provides a
development platform that's also suited for the wireless
industry. BREW's claim to fame is that fact that the developer
can write device-independent applications which do not need to
be recompiled for different phone manufacturers.
SYMBIAN is probably the most commonly used OS in the
game-enabled wireless telephone market. Embraced by all major
phone manufacturers, SYMBIAN supports J2ME, BREW, C++, and JAVA.
So, what does the future hold for this high-tech blockbuster
that's still in its infancy?
According to industry analysts Frost & Sullivan, the "global
mobile game industry, which generated US$436.4 million in 2002,
will balloon to US$9.34 billion by 2008." Asia is at the
epicenter of the wireless gaming explosion where an estimated
500 million people are wireless Internet subscribers and two out
of five are wireless gamers.
Some gaming fortune tellers predict that the convergence of GPS
and wireless gaming technology will result in live-action and
role playing games that will adapt themselves to the player's
physical location and include geographic-specific scenarios that
change as the player moves to new locations.
Judging by the progress that's been made in the last two years
alone, the future of wireless gaming may be the most revenue and
employment-generating technology of the 21st century.
About the author:
Chris Palau is CEO of a j2me
programmers and developers software company, which offers
offshore software development services.
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