Mobile gaming will be gutted by slump
THE GLOBAL economic slowdown will hurt the mobile gaming market, Nokia has claimed.
Last year the mobile gaming world suffered an unexpected slump, but this year Nokia expects it to be as tough or even worse.
Western Europe and North America is suffering from a bad case of hiccups, Jaakko Kaidesoja, head of Nokia's gaming operations told Reuters.
He quoted the research outfit Informa saying that the mobile gaming market did not grow in 2007 after years of double-digit growth. Kaidesoja said wider economic problems would likely hurt the market in 2009.
He said that the overall gaming market is not growing, but some parts of the market, like pre-loaded games, emerging markets, N-Gage and Iphone, would still be viable.
Nokia has not had much luck with mobile gaming and launched its N-Gage as a gaming service six months ago. Kaidesoja said that it had grown slowly because users had to install the service on their phones.
He admitted that pre-installing the software in phones before they are sold and having a local billing system in place, beyond credit card payments, were the keys to reach wider takeup of the service.
So far N-Gage has been popular in Britain, Italy, Germany, Australia and Spain, as local billing systems through operators have been available in those countries. µ
L'Inq
Reuters
via Yahoo
Share this:
ShareBusiness Intelligence Software
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Enterprise Accounting Software
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
Enterprise Systems Management
Ask Nintendo if they are stalling. Maybe playing on a cell phone is utter rubbish.
Maybe if the entire mobile platform wasn't chained down with tariffs and fees at every turn there would be more of an audience for mobile content.

Why would I want to pay 5.99 for something i can get for free off any one of thousands of flash gaming web sites?

They've been going in the wrong direction since they tried to lock up the wireless market with fees at every turn instead of being dumb pipes like every other ISP on the planet.

When will these profiteering idiots accept that charging for something that should be inherently free is going to be an uphill battle every time...
Get your ass in gear Nokia, Motorola, HTC etc. So far only the average looking Glofish has digital freeview on it's mobile smartphone. I want the newer smartphones to have freeview digital tv.

I want Eurosport on my mobile, live, no subscription ffs since I'm already paying £35/month for the phone/contract.

They are asking too much money for too little in return.
My personal opinion is that Apple's App Store will not be significantly affected by a slowdown of mobile games just as sales of the iPhone was not as affected as other handset manufacturers. Look for the App Store to continue making money throughout the Christmas holidays.