Games poor relation to ring tones

MOBILE GAMES ARE in danger of becoming the poor relation in a fast growing mobile entertainment market. British research firm, Ovum, says they represent only 5 to 20 per cent of the current market for handset 'personalisation.

Ovum claims that ringtones are taking the lion's share of this segment which will be worth $6.5 billion in 2008 - or $9.3 billion if you include callback tunes as well. The market was worth just $3.2 billion in 2003. However, another British research company, ARC, thinks the market for mobile entertainment in general will be worth a whopping $27 billion in 2008.

So how can games producers fight back? Well, UK games facilitators - Babel Media - are taking European games expertise to the world's content powerhouse - North America. Verizon Wireless is believed to be the market leader with 12 million games downloaded in the first five months of 2004. Babel offers a one-stop shop which can take a single game from a North American publisher, port it across multiple handsets and then localise the content for sale in Europe or Asia.

Babel won't be the only European company perusing the stands at the CTIA Wireless Entertainment show in San Francisco this week. European operators desperate for content to offer on next generation 3G mobile phones, will have their scouts out. Four of the UK's five main operators (O2 is the exception) will be offering 3G handsets in time for Xmas.

What mobile games need is more realism which is where 3D graphics comes in. That's why SRS Labs is making its 3G engine, Wow XT for Linux is available to license for ARM9 processors, Freescale's i.MX processors, TI OMAP processors and other ARM-based chipsets. Semiconductor supplier, Oki, recently announced a general-purpose ARM chip with integral support for Wow.

Meanwhile a British based 3G mobile games company, Superscape, is going great guns with its offering which converts existing games into a 3G format. µ