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Why Has No One Made a Great Gaming Phone?
andylim writes "According to Engadget, John Koller, Sony's head of PlayStation marketing, recently said that 'Apple's entrance into the portable gaming space has been a net positive for Sony. When people want a deeper, richer console, they start playing on a PSP.' What's odd though is that everyone knows that the mobile phone gaming market is a huge and yet neither Sony nor Nintendo has made a gaming phone yet. Recombu.com thinks that Nokia could enter the space with PSP-like devices and it has come up with a concept phone called the Ovi Orion, which would bridge the gap between phone and console, 'If the iPhone is Wii, then Ovi Orion would be Xbox and offer Xbox Live style features. A serious gaming phone for serious gamers.'"
Because phones are for TALKING. :P
There was a gaming phone a few years back. It flopped. No one revisited.
We'd get gaming at the cost of losing good phone features.
I have an ngage you insensitive clod!
The kids who play the games can't afford the service plans or phones themselves...
Most adults have other things to do, or more powerful systems at home to play "serious" games on.
I don't want to be beaten by my phone.
But why not go the other way? Integrate phone capabilities to PSP or DS. It's a lot easier than creating a new platform which can never really live up to those two.
Nokia did already try it, but it lost to PSP and DS. It was semi-popular with guys in my country and at my age, but I didn't really felt like getting one. And there really wasn't any good games.
Why couldn't i use my PSP as a phone?
If you're gaming on a portable, you've already sacrificed a ton of graphics. You're not going to get anything with a "wow" factor. The fact is that a DS gives you pretty much all the power you need to make a good game. If you can't do it, your problem isn't hardware.
Even something like a Droid Eris is probably sufficient. Not a lot of reason to buy dedicated hardware.
I'd love a gaming platform that I could still voice chat on (maybe VoIP only, and just pipe a 3G data plan to the device?), but the telecos are a pretty large barrier to entry.
Q.E.D.
I'd rather keep my phone/sms/chat separate from my game play. To play on the go needs something a bit larger and more tactile than an iPhone... the PSP is nice but I'd never stick it in my pocket on a night out. Plus, and particularly with the iPhone, a couple of hours playing games and your battery would be dust. Not only putting an end to game play but taking down your comms as well. Personally - when travelling the PSP is great (especially for the kids), if its a long time away from the PS3/Wii then I'll take a laptop.
As stated in the summary, "the iPhone is wee".
Seriously, it does nothing that high-end asian PDAs haven't done for almost a decade (and costs as much today as those did back then).
serious gaming? on a mobile device? c'mon. games on a phone are at best, distractions or time killers (babysitters).
the LAST thing I want to do is get heavy into a game and get a fucking call.
Great can be measured in many ways, you need to specify what way/how you want to measure great phone.
I'm sure there are plenty iPhone users out there that believe they have an amazing gaming phone,
heck, even I with my old Nokia and Tetris thought I had a great game phone.
That was true 5 years ago, but lots has happened. Look at who is getting all the US localization of Cave shmups. The Xbox 360. Gaming doesn't get much more serious than a Cave shmup.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
You can buy a DS/PSP without a freaking multi-year ass-rape contract.
Buying a gaming console should never be a long term financial decision.
Sometime streamlined/less is better, right?
Does your alarm clock really need a radio in it?
If each mistake being made is a new one, then progress is being made.
Despite gaming trying so hard to convince itself it's the greatest thing ever, gaming isn't cool enough to have a phone that looks like a controller of some sorts.
I've had a few ideas I've toyed with under the assumption I would patent it but patents are expensive, I don't see myself being a patent troll and I couldn't even fucked to pay to get a mock up done.
But I do believe the key is to make it not look like a gaming device while having decent controls and it can't be too delicate so it can handle some gaming over excitement.
Companies prefer to sell you dozens of single-purpose devices, rather than one device that does it all. There's more money to be made that way.
What I want is a single portable device that is all the portable devices combined into one, and when I get it home I can dock it into a "workstation shell" so that it becomes my home PC. The workstation shell has extras that aren't portable (DVD burner, dual monitors, a larger hard drive that contains files that I don't need to haul around wherever I go). Additionally, it could dock with other shells, so my home computer would become my work computer when I get to the office and dock it there. Ideally, it would also have a laptop shell I could dock it into for when I'm on the road.
A guy can dream, can't he?
... why haven't console makers displaced phone makers by making their own portable phone hybrid handheld? They have all the background necessary to make a killer phone that could wipe out most other phones.
Because I have a large wide screen TV attached to my consoles at home, multiple computers in my house running multiple OS'es, a DS, a PSP, an iPod Touch, and yes a MAME cabinet. I don't need my phone to play any games. I barely use my iPod Touch to play games, and that seems crazy to some people. Maybe because I'm a 'serious' gamer (as named by various media and/or gaming companies) as opposed to all this talk of 'casual' gaming. If you want real gaming, toss your DS or whatever in your car, or grab a backpack/messenger bag/stylish-bag-of-your-choice and pop it in. I carry my Blackberry and iPod around without problem.
Clearly I need more caffeine or something. And get off my lawn. Damn, when did I get old?
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
How many serious gamers want to play games on a massive 2 inch screen? Show of hands?
Now if there was some sort of heads up display technology involved I would consider it.
Phones and Games mix about as well as SPAM and Phad Thai. Really, the only seemless way of doing this is to create a contextual device that changes from one to the other seemlessly... wait... we already have that, it's called the iPhone. And it's the most rapidly growing gaming platform on the market. With titles outselling the PSP about 20:1. Now, it's getting handheld console ports like Broken Sword, Spore, Myst, Super Monkey Ball, and on and on. With capacity and processing power that outdoes the PSP, Sony really should be worried. And they are, but this kind of speak that their using in the above quote reaks of double-talk spawned by latent fear. Basically, they realize they're in trouble, and their trying to make it sound like everyone is jumping on board with the PSP from the iPhone... but where are the numbers? The PSP hasn't had any major sales increases, in fact, I've heard that their numbers are falling. This is all speculation, wishfull thinking, and advertising on Sony's part.
The big hurdle is control. Buttons are always very nice for many kinds of games, though finger-pad is really nice for other things, and stylus is great for other things. Adding a d-pad to a smartphone is going to be either combersomb or unneccessary or both. There are games with extrodinary control systems on the iPhone, and there are games with terrible control systems. Same goes for the PSP. But I honestly don't think control system is going to be a big loss for people when the games are 1/4 of the price, run smoother, and are more portable.
Sony should be scared, and it's fairly clear that they already are.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Same reason no one has made a serious fart machine for serious teenagers.
That would be awesome. I was just texting a friend about this the other day while on my regular commute on I-95*. He said it nobody would use a phone for games when they have much better graphics at home. Then I pointed out how many people were stuck in this bumper to bumper traffic each day. I mean, there's only so many people you can talk to between the beltway and Manassas. I tried reading but it just wasn't, well, engaging enough to command my attention and I found myself getting bored.
I know that the whole gravity-sensor-tilt thing is hot with the kids, but it might just be worth it to get a stationary mount on the dash, and some bluetooth buttons that would clip onto the steering wheel. I'm all about safety, and to play those tilt games properly takes both hands way too often. Then again, I can text pretty well while driving with my knees, so maybe it's not a big deal once you get used to it.
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*of course I don't live or drive anywhere near there, but you get the idea.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
May not be true for this crowd, but the general public* has a buy-and-chuck mentality with their phones. They buy the latest and greatest device, watch a generation or two of "latest and greatest" devices dethrone their device, and end up buying that when their contract expires. Knowing this, they're not going to spend more than $10 on a game, let alone $35. (average DS release price)
*General public in this case refers to people who actually buy games on their phones, and these people generally don't get the free(with contract) phones.
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
for the non anti-Mac people
We will see more games on phones as tech gets more powerful/efficient. The phone environment is tough. People want 5+ hours of active battery life, doing almost computer class tasks, in a package the size of a deck of cards. The market is highly saturated and competitive. The user control on any phone for games is still not as good as dedicated platforms. A DS or PSP copied phone would be too big and heavy. If Nintendo or Sony really wanted to get into it they wouldn't be able to completely control the platforms like they more or less do on their consoles as well.They would have to be subject to wireless providers such as Verizon and ATT. Finally, games on phones need to be cheap. I don't think people would pay $30-60 for a cell phone game. At least not for a while.
"A serious gaming phone for serious gamers."
Am I the only one who chuckled at this? There is nothing serious about a gaming phone, unless you call bedazzled or solitaire serious gaming.
... because the lifespan of a cell phone has been around 2 years so far and no developers wants to invest in building apps for a platform that people throw in the trash every time they switch carriers...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
There is enough crap on my phone. In fact, the iPhone has so many apps and games for it that Apple had to make a larger model called an iPad :P
Ave Molech Setting
Serious gamers use a PC. Anything else might as well be Learning with Elmo.
Give Koreans a portable version of Starcraft 2, and I promise you that within a month Shenzhen will crank out the most bad-assed cellphone / gaming handheld.
I don't know what you mean with a 'gaming phone' but the iPhone does a pretty good job playing games. It has OpenGL 2.0 and a fast enough processor to play a bunch of games incl. high-end like Spore, Need for Speed etc.
What you should ask is: why has nobody made a great game for a phone and the answer is obvious: the devices are too small (you don't want to walk around with an iPad-sized phone), they don't support any type of controller (see yourself walking around with an Xbox controller or keyboard/mouse?) and even if they did, it would be useless anywhere but at home where you're much better off with a continuously connected computer/console.
There are some great gaming devices out there like the Nintendo DS or PSP but they're way too big and heavy to be considered a viable phone. They're in the category of portable game - when you're on a trip in the car/bus/train or laying in a bed/couch, not portable as in put it in your pocket and nobody notices.
What we're waiting for is a screen that is able to fold/roll out to a viable size (12") or project in thin air like those old 3D laser movie shows.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Just what we all need, one more thing for people to do while behind the wheel of a vehicle besides actually driving.
"Do you know how dumb average is?" - Peggy Hill
The reason nobody has made a great gaming phone, IMO, is because the criteria for "great gaming device" and "great phone" are so at odds with each other.
For a phone, you want to ensure that the primary use (communicating with people) is always available -- you don't want the battery to run down because if it does, you're screwed in an emergency. For a gaming device, you don't want the design to discourage people from gaming all they want. For a phone, you want the usability of the core functions (sending and receiving communications) to be as trivial and obvious as possible. For a gaming device, you want enough input options that a variety of types of games are easily supportable.
I do not expect Nintendo or Sony to try to make a great gaming phone, because if they did, I'm sure it would fail in the marketplace. And I'm sure they see that.
Now, what should they do? IMO, they should make it so their portable platforms can use other mobile devices.
Specifically, for example, how about some bluetooth headset support? There are a lot of bluetooth headsets out there. Can I bond them to your device to use both for audio output and spoken input? The Nintendo DSi has speakers and a microphone, and headphone jacks. But if I'm already using a bluetooth headset because of my phone, why not let me share that headset with my gaming device?
Another example: bluetooth PAN support. When wireless iPhone tethering is turned on, this is how it will work, and there are other phones that do this too. It's great if your gaming device can be a wifi client, but that's not the best way to get connectivity from most phones. Bluetooth is better for this for a variety of reasons.
Games require alot of power and communication with cellular networks do too. At the moment, you don't care if your DS or PSP runs out of battery but it is a bit more of an issue with a phone which you may need in an emergency.
The DS is the DS, the PSP is the PSP, but what exactly is a phone? Both the hand holds are designed for gaming and nothing else. They suck as phones or even as computers. But a smartphone has for a long time been hampered by the need to have a keypad. That keypad is fine for dialing a number but sucks for gaming input where handhelds TEND to have buttons on both sides because you hold the device with both hands. So, how are you going to create a phone that is both a high quality phone worthy of its high price AND good for general gaming AND a big enough success to have development for its design?
the nGage is the anser, you don't. The ngage failed because it was a lousy phone design and that lousy design made it a lousy handheld design and that lousy design meant no existing proper games worked on it and that meant only java games were half-heartedly ported for it that could run on any decent phone.
And the problem ain't really just with phones, MP3 players are lousy gaming platforms as well. Only with the iPhone that did away with the keys altogether managed to break this mold. And Apple is going to hit a limit really soon. Either they upgrade their phone and split the app market or they don't and become relics. The DS and PSP are by todays standards horribly underpowered. They can't upgrade to much, because who is going to produce a DS++ game for 1 million handhelds instead of DS game for millions more?
That is the final answer why there is no gaming phone, phones advance to fast to develop for. Develop a 1 year title starting at launch and the phone will be hopelessly obsolete.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Keep the cheap phones for making phone calls and the game computers for playing games.
One device for browsing the web, one for playing music, one for watching video, one for playing games, and one for making calls. Now your pockets are bulging, even if they are all tethered over Bluetooth. The only big benefit I can see of having several pocket-size devices is that the cheaper phones don't require a data plan, which means cheaper service if you don't make a lot of calls.
If you're a company and you're putting out a product, which of these two product markets would you rather be? The Wii (iPhone according to the Ovi Orion article), or the XBox (their supposedly spiffy idea). Hmm... Massively huge gigantic market selling at a profit or Middling market that started out selling as a loss leader. Choices, choices, choices.
Perhaps that simple market comparison itself right there is why no one has bothered again with a "gaming" phone. Heck, even comparing portable gaming units. Which would you want to sell, the DS with it's again, gigantic huge massive casual market? Or the PSP with it's middling "hardcore" market? Now the true gamers most likely have both, I know my household does. But the casual gamer, of which there are a great many more? They've got the DS if they've got one at all.
We knew that were in a bad reception area when my wife bought her phone and so we asked which ones were known for better signal reception. She decided on the cute one instead. Fashion beat out function.
- no dedicated gaming buttons: a "touch" style interface is terrible for any game more complex than brain age
- unreliable: when i want to play a game, i just turn on my DS and go, with the iphone it just takes too long and is too unreliable, plus it kills the batteries too quickly
...Nokia tried with the N-Gage and missed the mark. I would be all for it if a Nintendo DS phone or a PSP phone came out.
As if we don't have enough self-absorbed dipshits fiddling with their phones at inappropriate times NOW!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'm not excactly a gaming connoisseur (IANAGC :) ), but I found some of the N-gage (the platform, not the phone, and not Java-games) games for the Nokia N-series phones quite good; especially the Tekken-clone 'One'. Currently I'm rather addicted to 'Million Dollar Poker', and also played a lot of 'Guitar Hero' and Age of Empires 3.
Castle Wolfenstein works pretty damn well on an iPhone. don't need no stinking "gaming phone"!
Solitaire and bubblewrap popper also seems to work flawlessly....
An NES/SNES emulator app for iPhone or Android that could download the ROMs you buy from WiiShop would be awesome.
Probably wouldn't stress the CPUs that badly. The control interfaces would be a little weird, but with accelerometer + onscreen/semi-transparent buttons you'd probably be ok.
That was true 5 years ago, but lots has happened. Look at who is getting all the US localization of Cave shmups. The Xbox 360. Gaming doesn't get much more serious than a Cave shmup.
I know what a "cave" is. I know what a "shmup" is. WTF is a "cave shmup" though? I'd really like to know.
I would believe that most people here work in "Operations" or something in that line and not exactly on Marketing/Product Development environments. Either way, for operations and engineering people, Marketing departments are always a big pain to handle.
He is right, there is a market for a "combo" regarding phones and gaming... What he didn't backed up in numbers was the size of such market in Volume and Quantity. Only by knowing the consumer profile people will ever know if the benefict/cost relation is worth developing a new product or not.
He also seemed to lack vision about several things, one of them is the probable outburst of netbooks and tablets that are coming in a nearby future. This will be competitor products. Most people never realized that Swatch (http://www.swatch.com/) has found in Nokia (http://www.nokia.com) one of their biggest competitors, the fun part is that Nokia doesn't produce watches... Think a bit you will get it.
Then there should be the factor Technology, I would reckon that one of the most problematic issues with portable devices is resumed in two single words: Battery Longevity. This is getting messy in the phone world, and would become even messier in a phone with gaming compatibility. Eventually, within the next decade phones/smartphones as we know them today will be something very different, specially with the outburst of GSM new protocols.
Now, my word is simple, if he believes that he will get a "Milking Cow" on such market, go for it. Though I would reckon the most possible outcome would be a "dog" on a BCG Matrix.
I'm a FPS player. Playing what FPS on a phone would be satisfying? Battlefieldwhatever? COD4?
Pus.
I also play an old DnD game, Avatar. This would work if a PLATO terminal for, say, Android, existed, but actually even that screen would be marginal.
So the games I play on my G1 are Bonzai Blast, Jewels, Solitair games, and 'Mahjongg' which isn't mahjongg, but don't get me started.
If a 4" screen is suitable for 'real gaming', then we oughta be able to get a decent port of Halo running right?
Sorry. Pus. Phones as gaming platforms suck. They just suck. Bedazzled, Tetris, the usual time-wasters work fine, but anything 'serious' needs screen. We can work around the controls, but shooting the little dots is truly pointless.
Oh, in case you were wondering how I felt; this is a stupid question with a self-evident answer. Give it up, ok? Games on phones will be either simple, a terrible compromise, or something revolutionary. You were asking where the revolutionary games are? In someone's head still. We'll see them. Maybe. But I bet they suck.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
But I think the vast majority of the time ["the serious gamer"] should be the "slacker who does nothing but play video games".
Worse. I've come to the conclusion recently that "serious gamers" are the kind of drooling, stuck-in-pre-adolescence chimps who are deeply offended by the inclusion of optional "easy modes" for people who might want to buy and enjoy a game without having to spend 16 hours to get each level "just right."
... plain and simple. Modern smartphones already barely last through the day when used for e-mail, calendar, web browsing, GPS, etc. Add in the vastly higher power usage of high CPU and GPU demands for "great" gaming, and you'd have to double the size of it to fit a big enough battery to make it through the day. You can make a great gaming device that's too big and clunky to fit in your pocket, or a great phone that has acceptable battery life but sucks at games. Try to put great gaming hardware in a sleek, slim phone, and you'll suck down the battery in a matter of minutes.
Cave is a company that develops (mostly) shmups. They typify the "bullet hell" style of shmup. You might know them for Dodonpachi? Recently, the only Cave games that have gotten home ports have been on the Xbox 360. These include DeathSmiles, Mushihime-sama Futari, Espgaluda II.
If you have MAME, give Dodonpachi a try. You'll want a gamepad with a good dpad (a USB saturn pad is great), or an arcade stick. Oh, and lots and lots of patience and practice.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
of what to do.
Of all the shit that's been given to the NGage, it did quite a bit right. Controller DPad was fine, plenty of buttons and supposedly the development environment was pretty good(it was Symbian after all).
of course, everything it did *wrong* sank it. But if you took the iPhone or Droid's touch screenscreen, with a DPad and buttons that didn't get in the way of the screen or using it as a phone/smart phone, along with Android? I might give up my iPhone 3gs for one.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
because the controls sucks and the API is limited no direct hardware access diminishes the performance
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That's why nobody has gone after the hardcore gamers with a phone. Playing games on your phone is a casual activity. If you're a hardcore gamer, you don't want an XBox phone, you just play your XBox.
With that said, of course the bigger the market opportunity the more likely we'll see Sony, Nintendo, et all enter the fray. But it's not particularly surprising that casual gamers are the target.
A phone is optimized for holding it close to your ear and talking. A gaming device is optimized for repetitive, rapid and precise button presses, while maintaining screen visibility. These are very different requirements and compromise leaves you with a device that sucks at both. It'd be quite difficult to come up with a design that's better than essentially taping a phone to the back of a game controller. You could make a general purpose device that can do anything (e.g. a flat touchscreen with software buttons), which has been done, but it's not really great at anything either. It's similar to how a cellphone can tell time, but a wristwatch is better.
Combine that with the fact that US cell phones are typically locked to a single network and you've got an expensive to design device with a small potential user base and no guarantee that this novel device can fill the "gaming phone" niche, if it even exists. It doesn't surprise me that no gaming company has invested into that idea.
But I know what you mean.
Don’t worry. Soon mobile phones and handheld consoles will merge (e.g. PSP + N900 style), just like cameras, GPS navigation, music player, USB stick, etc, etc, etc.
I give it 5 years, tops, until they become good.
Remember that Nokia already did make the N-Gage. Which was not great, but a start. (The start is never great. Just as the first iPhone was a true p.o.s. in everything except the cool multi-touch UI.) The point is that it has (already) started, and needs a bit of time to mature, finds its customers, etc.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
There is an open source Gaming Console that could be used as a phone, just install skype on it. Its the PXA gaming platform and unlike the Pandora which has some binary blobs for the graphics driver, its completely open, complete with the schematics.
http://www.gizmoforyou.net/site/shop/gizmos/computing/pxa-gaming.html
As I ponder cooking dinner tonight I wonder - Why has no made a truly great gaming over/stovetop combination? It's certainly not for lack of knobs, buttons or displays.
Words "Serious" and "gaming" should not be in a same sentence.
cell phone carrier lock in and high data costs in usa make it hard to have a common cell phone platform.
As if enough people aren't killing or being killed just talking on the goddamn things! Seriously.
Yes, yes. I know. Most people would be smart enough to play when it's appropriate... But those so inclined probably have a better standalone gaming handheld anyway. ;o
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
The fall of all gaming phone device is they're missing App Store, the creativity of new game that works on phone platform. After opening up the App store, it allows greater creativity. That means more great game on the phone. Just like how come plam is never a great gaming platform with the stylus, but it works out on the Nintendo DS.
So will the new ngage phone still be taco shaped?
This is why Sony nor Nintendo should be looking to create a gaming phone, they should be looking to create PSP/DS with phone capabilities. Otherwise it's just going to fail.
Actually, I really don't think so. The time will come where what you say is correct, but I believe now is not the time. Here's why.
Basically, both phones and portable game systems are, in terms of their hardware and software, and the expectations of the users, continually evolving. However, I think phones are still evolving faster than game systems. New telephony technologies continue to be rolled out, network coverage in the US is still inconsistent between carriers and spotty in some places, and the iPhone, which is the item by which most people have set their standards and expectations for a high-end phone, is at present just a few years old - and has already gone through a couple revisions. Compare this to Nintendo DS and Sony PSP: DS has gone through two major hardware revisions in five years, and only the most recent of those changed the hardware specs significantly. The situation for the PSP is similar: roughly the same amount of time, and a similar amount of change to the platform over time.
I think that combining a phone with a gaming device at this time would probably still be a bad idea. Turning a phone into a game platform involves more than adding game controls to it - it means turning it into a platform stable enough that players and game publishers will be willing to invest themselves in it. Game platforms stay the same for years so that publishers can make money on software. Phones, at present anyway, are still caught up in a mad rush to one-up one another. A game machine with phone capabilities could be good now, but a couple years down the road its capabilities as a phone would practically be a joke. This doesn't preclude establishing a stable game system as a subset of a particular phone line's capabilities - but then the "game platform" games would be inferior to the "phone native" games or something like that...
Bow-ties are cool.
because the screen on a cell phone is TOO FUCKING SMALL, MORONS.
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Kilgore Trout
They already made one it was called the N-Gage for its time it was cutting edge, but no one wanted it. It was a brick, had no real audience and was very expensive. The iphone has the casual gamer wrapped up. For the "serious gamer" there just isnt enough of a market to justify it, do you really think if sony thought a PSP phone would sell enough to justify development costs that it wouldnt already be on the shelf?
So, you want to know why no one has made a "real" gaming phone, eh? Here's just a few reasons...
Battery life sucks enough with just a browser.
Nvidia/ATI doesn't employ dozens of coders to give you the latest and greatest 3D graphics and features so you can attempt to enjoy them on a 2" screen.
"Serious" gamers use a mouse and build their own hardware.
I can't even play Brickbreaker on my phone without a text message affecting gameplay in some way.
Trying to say we need a "great gaming phone" is like trying to convince NASCAR they "need" a Mini Cooper Division. The shit just ain't gonna happen.
Just a few days ago: "50 Android games in 10 minutes"
http://www.androidcentral.com/50-android-games-10-minutes
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
There are plenty of people who want phones. There are plenty of people who are serious gamers. But the market of people who would make that factor (serious gaming capabilities) the overriding factor in purchasing a phone would be very, very small. To even take the question seriously suggests that you're among a tiny minority who thinks that heavy-duty games are important to a much higher percentage of the population than is actually the case.
A gaming device wants to take advantage of every last bit of performance available; a phone necessarily has background processes taking away from that ability. Sure, you could make a phone that's good at some types of games (that's what Japanese phones do, for example), and probably make a fair bit of money off of porting 8-bit classics or something, but it's not going to be a great gaming device.
http://www.tenjou.net/
The iphone has the casual gamer wrapped up.
I'd say Nintendo DS has the casual gamer wrapped up - at 125 million sales, the Iphone doesn't even come anywhere near close. And that's before we consider that most people are probably buying the Iphone for reasons other than gaming.
This is a perfect example of what I would like to call marketing mathematics: Statistics stacked to make the perfect argument for why you are the next big thing. It's what's used in business plans to convince people to give you money. Well, just look at the survival rate of such startups for proof it's all smoke and mirrors.
On a more relevant note, look at PCs and consoles. It's like saying the PC is the perfect gaming console. Sure, but it's a different market, a different dynamic, and user behavior nor market behavior justifies the extinction of consoles.
Phone gaming is not taking off, even on the iPhone. Real developers aren't able to charge users enough for their product, they aren't able to promote effectively, and Apple hasn't addressed the bottlenecks for any serious production.
Phone gaming is huge in Japan where they have everyone commuting spending an hour plus a day staring at their phones in the train, but like others have suggested, serious gamers are holding DS's and PSP's, while those with lesser interest just play simpler games they can grab for free.
When we are involved in tasks that require full focus, like gaming, it is not necessarily a drawback to have a device that also fully focuses on that task.
don't make great ice dancers.
Notice how the US Government can't get anyone to volunteer to disclose genealogy and private details about themselves in a government office, yet everyone will register and "play" with these useless CIA "social" outposts despite their having no other purpose than data-mine people's behaviours and interactions with others. Notice how Craigslist is being datamined by employees of Ebay to harass any semi-eBay member that is selling on Craigslist. Just go back to Craigslist and have specialty WAP's to host region-specific BBS and IRC with maybe some access to other private/WAN. I easily have no use for the Internet anymore. I've already seen it, know what bullshit is being thrown at people to convince them they need these proprietary POS/crap social services that do more to put neighbors on their ass rather than go outside to talk at the fence. Meanwhile, everyone should notice that they lost their Public Television bandwidth to all the aliens to their nation; all of Mexico broadcasting extends practically across into the southern States of America bordering Mexico, so I don't see how FCC could think of re-allocating those bands for other use and violate everyone's rights again.
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Monster
all is crap, except Gutenberg and Amazon perhaps.
The whole concept of a gaming phone is impractical. The games worth playing, imho, are both memory and processing power intensive. Furthermore, you need relatively decent graphics capability. To top it all off, playing a game on a cell phone screen would be next to impossible. Most games require you to be able to pick out details which you would be unable to see on a cell-phone sized screen.
Where has reason in the world gone? Have we abandoned it in favor of power and politics?
Your average Swiss army knife has a screwdriver, blade and file. It can drive screws, cut and file things but not as well as a dedicated screwdriver, knife or chisel. This is why there will never be a good gaming phone, the best you can do is tack phone functionality onto something like a Nintendo DS and have a gaming system with a phone.
Mobile gaming is hard, that's why there are only two players (Sony and Nintendo) and why neither of them consider mobile phones a threat to their mobile gaming products. If they did consider them a threat the DS and PSP would have already gone through a HW revision to add a 3G transmitter. Granted I'll put money on the likelihood that the next generation of mobile gaming platforms will have an inbuilt 3G (or 4G) transmitter and SIM slot.
Some people are happy with all in one devices but as you said, they don't really use them to their full potential. Granted I don't use many devices to their full potential, I bought a point and shoot camera rather then a DSLR because all I needed was a P&S but the level of functionality I use is far above that any of my phones. Most people will be similar, this is why the PC will not disappear as the iFanboys have predicted, they will be using enough of the PC's unique functionality to justify it's existence.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Sony's scared?
Awaken from your dreamy state fanboy. The only people that scare the PSP team are Nintendo's DS team.
I'm quite critical of Sony (one of the few corps more evil the MS) but one thing they are not is scared, neither is Nintendo. If Sony or Nintendo were threatened by an upstart phone they would have already put 3G transmitters into the last hardware revision of the DS or PSP. Sony have sold millions of PSP's (approx 55 million as of Aug 09) and Nintendo have sold an order of magnitude more (approx 125 million as of Dec 09). With established markets, superior and cheaper devices, a massive back catalogue of games and overwhelming developer support why would Sony or Nintendo be scared.
Comparing gaming on the iphone to gaming on the DS is like comparing Spam to a steak dinner, I can make the Spam look nice but it will never taste as nice as a steak. Mobile phone gaming only serves as distraction, not a dedicated gaming platform. It's a ideal way to waste 10 or 15 minutes, not that there's anything wrong with that but it is by no means a competitor to a Nintendo DS that I can happily use on a 5 or 6 hour flight without the battery going dead or ergonomics becoming a problem.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Nobody makes a gaming phone because everyone knows that the carriers would be all over it charging the outrageous prices to play. Who wants to get burned like that? 2.99 for a 20 second ring tone indeed....
I play a ton of games on my iPhone, and on my Wii. I don't even have an xbox. But, so far as I can tell, I buy more games than two average xbox gamers, and spend more time per week playing games than the average xbox gamer.
So who exactly is a serious gamer? Sheesh.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
If sony or nintendo wanted to become like everyones best friend they could create a psp with basic cell phone capabilities a
an open sim card slot and no pre-assigned carrier. That way teenagers and others could go to 7-11 buy a prepaid
sim card and stick it in.
The truly huge untapped market is not for the cell phone users who like to game, its for people who own a
psp or ds and dont want to have to carry around a separate cell phone or have a stupid contract they cant afford.
This 400MHz tool is better than a Motorolla A1200/A1210, and is basically a computer with Cell-phone communications abilities over the pre-payed network. I also have a 802.11g adaptor for when I want to use WIFI, so it's still a juggling game.
The best formfactor computer to ever arrive is a Pandora Console, but it's just a couple U$ hundreds out of my range. Pandora is the drop-in replacement, and my expandability scales so I can bring my hardware. Isolate a PDA cell-phone's hardware so I can carry my expansion modules with me to another platform just like back in the PCI and ISA expansion PC hardware in the days...
I remember reading a study a few years back where they discovered that people have an unusual relationship with their phones as compared to other electronic devices. If you stick a camera on someone's phone they will love it, but if you stick a phone on someone's camera they'll hate it, and it's not just because of odd form factors.
A successful gaming phone has to be a successful phone first. It has to make calls well, it has to send text messages well, these days if it's a smart phone it has to check your e-mail well, and give you directions. It has to do all these things first, and if it does, and it has games which are fun to play then the games will sell.
Every single attempt(and there have been several) to do the opposite, make a gaming device which is a phone has failed. Nintendo doesn't make phones, they could potentially make phones, but they don't and it would likely be expensive and risky for them to do so.
Sony does make phones, but so far they don't make much in the way of smart phones, so they aren't really in that arena either.
Essentially it's hard to make a gaming phone much more complex than the iPhone without making it not a phone anymore. You're unlikely to see a forray into this market from anyone who isn't currently in the smart phone busines, since you need good phone functionality to start with. Blackberry and Palm make pretty much exclusively business products, Nokia just lost a mint on their last attempt in the last couple of years, and Apple already has the market leader. Barring new technologies which allow a device with a more changeable nature(phone shaped sometimes, games device other times), the only real candidate for a gaming phone is google.
Play and talk at the same time? Don't need to pause the game you're on, just hit a button somewhere to answer it. As long as the games does not have voice recognition then we're fine. Still... there is a risk of blurting out conversations in the game especially while playing RPG. :P
Worse. I've come to the conclusion recently that "serious gamers" are the kind of drooling, stuck-in-pre-adolescence chimps...
Oh look. And they have mod points too.
Apple is the best contender to bring one to market successfully however Apple's software approval process will kill it. Next in line Sony and Nintendo. Sony is known for overpriced great hardware, shitty support and on top of that until they lowered their prices they pissed off a lot of developers. Nintendo on the other hand upgrades its platform every few years and does a great job of making software backwards compatible, unfortunately unlike Sony (Ericson) Nintendo has never made a Phone so their entry into that market will be difficult because they are behind the curve for Cell Phone R and D by about 20 years. Now if Apple was willing to co-brand (which they wont) and bring Nintendo's reputation (and loyal customers) into the iPayTooMuch Platform they could have a solid winner that would rival the PSP. I loved my PSP but it was a bulky and closed so hacking it was a P.I.T.A. (attempt->brick->repair->attempt->brick->repair->attempt->brick->drink vodka , turn on xbox and say screw it). Same reason I gave up on iPhone, they locked their phone with AT&T I had T-Mobile. Hack-update-Hack-Update it was an annoying cycle plus apple lost out once I hacked my iPhone I was able to put free software on there which eliminated the requirement to PAY for anything from itunes before deciding if I wanted it. While Apple claims that its policies are to enforce brand management etc etc They basically don't want to admit they fucked up by being exclusive with AT&T when they knew the phone was not unhackable (only a sucker would believe something like that). The first company to successfully bring a true all in one portable device that doesn't lag, actually works and has a compliment of reputable developers actively supporting that platform will win. I know that statement is kind of obvious but if thats true shouldn't someone have achieved this already? Oh and if no one remembers reading their slashdot and techdirt Nokia pulled the plug on N-Gage servers a few months ago so those that made the investment in software and hardware were effectively screwed. I feel the same way about Nokia as I do about Sega or Canon or my little brother Great Ideas, No follow through. For example the N series phones great hardware No support from Nokia and No support from developers = cool device but dead platform (Anyone remembering the Sega 32X Saturn Dreamcast or Canon Bubble Jet Series Printer right about now?) The unfortunate reality is as much as I HATE microshaft if I wanna game I have to do it on an Xbox 360.
The best phone cameras (iPhone, Droid) are pretty good, but not nearly as good as a good compact camera, and nowhere near a DSLR.
The best phone GPS's are very accurate, but have nowhere near the battery life, sensitivity, and ruggedness of a Garmin Legend unit designed for hiking.
The best phone keyboards are quite usable, but not as good as a tiny netbook, and nowhere near a larger netbook.
The best phone screens are large and clear, but not nearly as good as a portable DVD player, and nowhere near a notebook.
The best phone processors (ARM Cortex A8) are pretty darn close to a netbook, but nowhere near as powerful as a higher-end notebook or desktop.
The best phone media players (iPhone) are... okay, a decent phone actually is just as good, if not better than, a dedicated MP3 player in this case.
When you have a good signal, a 3G connection can give pretty high throughput, but not as good as midrange DSL or cable connection, and nowhere near as good as most universities' or corporate offices' bandwidth. ... And everyone seems to like it that way. The smartphone seems to have become the jack-of-all-trades device, highly integrated and packing tons of features. The best ones are good at lots of things, but they're not really "the best possible device" for any one task. Smartphones are good for talking and sending messages and browsing the web and figuring out where you are and taking photos and playing music, but there are dedicated devices that do any thing better. This probably explains why there's no phone that's just amazing for gaming. It would compromise all the other functions to a degree that would render it attractive only to a niche market.
My bicyles
Nobody can build a gaming phone. Not until they can make a phone project onto a watchable screen surface (21" +) and with a usable controller.
Serious gaming simply needs a decent sized form factor, which is orthogonal to phone ergonomics.
You may as well ask, "Why has no one made AM/FM paint rollers?"
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
It was called the NGage and it failed. Now nobody wants to take the chance.
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Necessary disclaimers: Okami was widely believed to have killed off its developers, Clover Studio. Also, its creators have nothing to do with Okamiden (the sequel).
The same reason there are no good water-heating phones or no good toaster phones.
A while back nokia released the n-gage phone. It even had shelf space for games at the local EB store. I don't think it caught on though and I don't see the stuff around anymore. If it was a failed experiment I can't see companies like nokia jumping on the bandwagon too quickly again. I see the n-gage site is still up but I can't recall seeing much in the way of promotion for it and sites like IGN have taken down their section for it that included reviews etc..
There are a few more factors about why no one has made a great gaming phone. The fact that the primary function of aphone is talking is one of those factors. But when you consider the iPhone's success, it is obvious that there is no reason that a phone cannot also have other functions and be successful. I would say that there are a few other factors.
Inadequate Data Medium: It is only recently that fully downloadable games have become competitive with games on a Disc or Cartridge. When your up against the DS / PSP, a simple pong / bejeweled style game is not going to drive sales of your gaming phone among gamers. This is especially critical when you consider the typical size of a modern cell phone.
Fractured Hardware market: The hardware cycle for cell phones is a bit too fast, and there are many providers. This means that of all the people buying cell phones, only a small number of them will buy a particular gaming phone. This is going to limit the number of developers that are going to target your platform for their games.
Price point: Most cell phones with sufficiently advanced features are a great deal more expensive than an Nintendo DS and the PSP. This may be overcome if enough people buy the cell phones for games. But such phones will never penetrate very much among very young gamers because no parent will ever spend $710 on an iPhone for their child (see this link for price source, in Cdn Dollars: http://www.ehphone.ca/2008/06/cost-of-buying-the-iphone-3g-without-a-contract/). That assumes they break the monthly contract. If they don't, well, do you know anyone who would buy their child an iPhone under a monthly contract?
Insufficient Profit for Developers of Games: The first two factors above have been overcome by Apple's iPhone, which has a sufficintly large install base, and the ability to hold enough game assets (art for characters and levels) to make games that are competitive against the Nintendo DS and PSP. The price element might be overcome if there are enough owners of the iPhone who are also gamers. But the app store is not making anyone but Apple rich, and most 'full scale' games are ports of other handheld titles. It is very possible that insufficient developer profit is probably the only thing holding Apple back from becoming a real threat to Nintendo in the Handheld gaming market.
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