Multiplayer For Mobile Games - Are We There Yet?

Thanks to GameSpot for its feature discussing whether multiplayer mobile phone gaming is genuinely an emerging trend. According to the piece: "For every mobile maven that claims that networked multiplayer is where mobile gaming must direct its energies, there are another two that point to the prohibitive costs, technical barriers, and unacceptable risks that currently stand between wide-spectrum multiplayer and reality." Isaac Babbs of Atlas Mobile frames the problems as "...device limitations and high data costs to the consumer. On many of today's networks, even a simple chess game could hit you for half an hour of airtime--and that's if you manage to make it through without the other player getting fed up and dropping or going into a tunnel and losing reception." Will mobile phone gaming ever take off in the States?

Comments

from the article:

[Anonymous Coward]

"The social element is really integral to multiplayer," added Riedel, "but we can't really do chat, voice chat, or video conferencing on mobile right now."

I'm sorry? You can't do voice chat on a mobile phone? :)