Evolution of Mobile Gaming Industry

Technology Bytes/Beats:

Evolution Of Mobile Gaming Industry
From the time in memorial, the earliest games were anything but flexible and responsive. In fact, they were based on fixed algos with extremely limited options.
Its been a couple of years, when the Desktop PC’s had started penetrating/entering Indian customers. No wonders, no one really had an idea of what to do with it. And it looked people buy it for playing games, as it looked to be the most happening thing to do with home computers. From students to businessmen.
No one was aware of that the Gaming Industry is the biggest industry across globe, 2nd only seconded to Hollywood Industry. And the major hardware platform being used was MIPS based processor, unlike x86 based processor in our home computers. The later also was inviting game developers to contribute to the same but the involvement/contribution was very less.
The Technology moves at such a rapid pace, and it is mostly driven by market needs/potential, future growth prospects etc etc. and then came the time when Embedded Operating Systems started getting ported to Cellphone devices. Symbian, WinCE, Smartphone, elinux etc with Symbian dominating the space. It was but obvious for developers as well as end users to look forward to ARM based processors, on which the Devices are built. And since then, there hasen’t been any looking back and the industry has been growing in terms of leaps and bounds. There used to be predictions that one-day the gaming market will reach close to the Hollywood market, and this year (2005), it has already crossed the Hollywood. Forget about coming close.
What Next: Looks as if the ARM processor along with Symbian OS will continue to dominate the success, seconded by e-linux, but the day e-linux makes a mark, it can turn the situation the other way round. The only reason why it has not penetrated the space is because the engineer’s themselves do not have very good understanding, but the companies are trying hard because of the cost advantages.
To the gamers, it means better and cost effective technologies to play around with. And entering global ……………., where there are lets say 10,000 users hooked on across the globe playing/challenging/winning/losing.
To the Technology freaks, it would mean moving towards wireless and related technologies. Exploring new innovations, in wireless as well as in gaming. Carriers would also play a role, which would again be mostly market driven(GSM? CDMA?). Challenges would include Security issues, as many games like poker etc have huge costs associated with the online games. To Engineers it would mean more challenges, and keeping updated with the latest happenings, and be prepared for future predictions.
Lot of innovations are going on to incorporate AI (Artificial Intelligence) into games, aspiring the gamers to have overwhelming gaming enjoyment. The games based on AI (Artificial Intelligence) would obviously adapt and learn in response to the player's actions and certain general rules, leaving the specific options for game play wide open.
Along with Mobile Games, the new generation of PlayStation and Xbox are aspiring to get launched soon. As per the aggressive claims of the vendors including the new Sony PlayStation Portable, a gaming device, will eventually change the way games are played.
3G based mobile phones are expected to become much more popular in the near future and would be able to play games over them.