I got an Xbox for Christmas. I don't play videogames; I'm really bad at it, and while I love the action, my car always spends a lot of time smashed into the wall or driving over the grass. But the Xbox is a wonder nonetheless, with amazing graphics and sound and even vibrating hand controllers that rub in the part about the wall and the grass. It also makes a dandy DVD player when one is through admiring the technology.
I don't play videogames, but just about everyone else does: Worldwide, videogame and equipment sales are greater than $25 billion. So it's only natural to assume that there's a huge audience out there that simply cannot get enough fun.
While I like observing the Xbox's great graphics on a large screen, most of the cell phones I've owned recently also have games built in. The offerings may be primitive (by comparison), but I often see people on the train or bus playing them. And, of course, it stands to reason that if they're happy playing games that live in ROM, they'd be even happier with games that arrive-or are even played-over the air.
With color screens and faster processors are finding their way into a broad variety of reasonably priced cell phones, it seems very likely that mobile gaming will see huge growth over the next few years. All that processor power can be used to support Qualcomm's Brew, J2ME and other platforms, making it much easier to build and distribute applications like games. More than $1 billion was spent on downloading ringtones last year-that boggles my mind-so it's not a stretch to conclude that downloading games into phones has the potential to generate even greater piles of cash.
Regardless, one area that I think will disappoint is the very obvious possibility of providing multiplayer interactive gaming via wireless connections. The problem here isn't bandwidth but rather the variable nature of the radio channel, coupled with insufficient basestation coverage and capacity. As anyone who owns a cell phone would likely agree, it would be great if the carriers could clean up their voice-service acts before proceeding to broadband and interactivity.
Sadly, coverage and connection quality will continue to be issues until the industry consolidates and cash flows improve. A dropped call is irritating, but I don't want to be on a train sitting next to a player who loses his connection just when he's about to clobber the other guy.
Craig J. Mathias is Principal of Farpoint Group (Ashland, Mass.).
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