Is mobile 3D finally on the move?

June 14th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

3D World Magazine has an article in this edition (July 2005) on the future of 3D in Mobile Games.  The article includes interviews with IGDA Mobile-SIG Chair Kurt Uhlir and Thor Gunnarsson from Ideaworks3D.

I saw the article in my print version that just showed up, but it is also show in full text on the IGDA site (with distribution rights for IGDA to show it online).

Thanks to John Tyler

Peninsula is fast becoming Game Central

June 6th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

The city is a hub of the young but growing cell phone gaming business

THE MID-PENINSULA has long been ground zero for the video-game business, so it’s no shocker that the city of San Mateo is emerging as a hub for the fast-growing cell phone game industry.

But with seven phone-game companies in the same town only a few miles apart, industry leaders carefully watch what they say in public.

"It’s like Hollywood," said Andy Riedel, vice president of game production for InfoSpace, which bought Atlas Mobile last year to get into the phone-game business. More …

Gaming Industry Sees M-Commerce Opportunities

May 23rd, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

A host of gaming developers are using the Electronic Entertainment Expo to herald the widespread availability of direct-download games for mobile phones, a sign that gaming could join digital music and other services at the forefront of the mobile commerce trend. More …

Games Migrate to Mobile Phones

May 23rd, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | 1 Comment »

hile next-generation consoles and cutting-edge graphics dominate the floor at E3, if you look around the edges, away from the crowds, you’ll find a number of companies hoping that the next big platform will be one that you may already have in your pocket: the mobile phone.

Cell phones are largely unstandardized and often more than a decade behind the times in rendering power. Nevertheless, there are plenty of game producers banking on them. More …

Videogame makers bet that playing on the go will be hot

May 19th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

TOKYO — Jin Saburi was drinking coffee at a Tokyo Denny’s when an urgent message hit his cellphone: "Shion, level 12, requests a rescue. Will you respond?"

The "rescue" wasn’t real — it was part of the fantasy game Mr. Saburi was playing on his mobile phone. But the plea for help was genuine: Shion was another gamer somewhere in Japan playing that same game — one of thousands of Japanese playing each other, in real time, over the cellular network.

"It’s nice to have the feeling that other people are playing along with you," says the 33-year-old Mr. Saburi. He went on to rescue Shion and so many other players that day that he ended up having a second meal at Denny’s. More …

Game physics starts to get real

May 16th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

Better physics is not just restricted to consoles and PCs. Mobile phones are getting their own physics engines too.

I-Play, formerly Digital Bridges, has produced a game for mobile phones called Nate Adams – Freestyle Motocross that exploits realistic physics to make the title more challenging. More …

3D gaming on 2D mobile phones

May 12th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

New simulation technology gives 2D handsets rich 3D gaming experience InfoSpace Inc., a leading provider of mobile entertainment, today introduced the Virtual 3D Simulator, a cutting-edge mobile engine that brings a rich 3D game experience to 2D handsets. Now mobile consumers using 2D handsets will have 3D game experiences, previously unavailable to the vast majority of mobile consumers. More …

Games on mobile phones could improve science education across Europe

May 10th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

Academics within the University of Bradford have been given funding for a two-year project to help encourage young people to take up science and technology subjects through mobile phones and computer games. More …

Coming Soon to a Tiny Screen Near You

May 9th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | No Comments »

Titans in entertainment and telecom and legions of upstarts are betting billions of dollars that you will want to use your cell phone for TV, music, gaming, gambling, navigation–even Lilliputian porn. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned chitchat? More …

A Bridge to Korea’s Gaming Market

May 9th, 2005 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Trends | 1 Comment »

The MMO and mobile games markets in Korea have been big revenue generators. Because Korea has been a leader in these areas, the Korea Culture & Content Agency (KOCCA) is helping to spread awareness of the opportunities Korea presents to American companies and vice versa. We speak with KOCCA USA marketing director Alexis Wallrich and Gravity Interactive marketing manager David Kim about the Korean gaming market. More …