Having developed mobile applications for 6+ years. I have observed many trends in the mobile space such as 3D etc and yet, there was 1 trend that I failed to spot back when the Motorola ROKR was the mobile phone that Apple produced in a partnership with Motorola and the iPhone was just a prototype in Apple’s lab in Cupertino.

Moore’s law states that computing power will double every 24 months. But I was unable to reconcile it with the explosion of mobile and the introduction of a new mobile phone market segment called “The consumer smartphone”.

A long time ago, smartphones were the must-have accessories of high powered executives and CEOs who needed the 24 by 7 access to their emails on their mobile and devices such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile blossomed and grew by catering to this market segment

But with the introduction of the iPhone to the consumer market, this has opened up a new category of mobile users who use smartphones to email their friends, not their colleagues. Plus, with Moore’s law driving down the cost of the mobile phone processors while providing more power. Phone manufactures are now able to produce smartphones at a cheaper price and then sell it to the mass market by pricing it within their reach.

Even Blackberry which traditionally catered to executives, have been marketing their new smartphones to the mass market after realizing what a big market this is and the same goes for the other guys such as Windows Mobile etc.

Now, with the better web browsing experience that smartphones offer(Except for Blackberry which still have lousy browsers) and faster speed and more bandwidth. The possibilities for mobile is now endless, so be prepared for the mobile revolution to fully take off and consumer smartphones to be the vanguard leading the way. Therefore hang on to your seats, cause we ain’t seen nothing yet

I have just updated my portfolio with a Blackberry game that I did for Enigma Games a few months ago. There is a review on gamesinfo.net where quoting the reviewer “This is a great game for football fans who want a quick game on a mobile device.“. The designer and I are pretty happy with how this Blackberry game has turned out and we still communicate on MSN ocasionally to discuss about the latest happenings in the game development industry. This is what quality work produces.

At the GCA a few weeks ago, I dropped by the Nokia booth in the business section for a presentation on the new N-gage. After the disastrous fiasco that was the original N-Gage. There, I found out more information about the new N-gage and what is the difference between that and SNAP mobile which I knew was a J2ME multiplayer platform. At the Nokia N-gage presentation, here is what I discovered

• N-gage games are developed using Symbian. SNAP mobile is it’s J2ME counterpart
• N-gage is now not a phone, but a platform supported by a series of phones
• N-gage supports try before you buy which is pretty good for consumers burnt by paying good money for a game that do not run on their handset

But then, there could be a few issues which mainly concern around the usage of Symbian for game development. Symbian development is painful in the least and after surveying a group of mobile developers, their unanimous opinion is that Symbian game development is akin to poking a sharp fork in your eye, twirling it around violently and then scooping it out with a rusty blunt spoon.

So with the choice of Symbian as a development language, the market share for the new N-gage will be quite limited to only Symbian phones and the market may be too small to give a good ROI for Nokia and N-gage.

A couple days ago, someone mentioned about his mobile phone being a lousy platform for mobile games. This is a pretty common grouse since device fragmentation means that some phones perform superbly well when running mobile games and some are just abysmal. So for people who are thinking of getting a new phone and downloading a few mobile games to play. Here is my short list of best mobile phones for mobile games.

• Sony Ericsson K750 (Has a build in radio too)
• Sony Ericsson K700
• Sony Ericsson K610 (I am currently using this and coincidentally, the cheapest too)
• Sony Ericsson KXXX series (K600 etc)
• Nokia 6630

Avoid Samsung, LG and Motorola phones as these phones have poor support for mobile games. Some may not even run at all and you will find yourself stuck with a bill for a game download that does not work.

Today, I just received an email by Nokia about the beta trial of MOSH Nokia. Being a registered member of Forum Nokia. I was intrigued by this invite and decided to pay a visit to the website.

Nokia MOSH is a new social networking initiative by Nokia launched in 2007 and seems to be Nokia’s way of bring social networking into the mobile space. With Nokia’s muscle behind this, I guess that they are slowly differentiating themselves from their competitors such as Sony Ericsson, Motorola and the iPhone.

I didn’t had time to play around with Nokia MOSH much after I’ve registered it and so, my opinions are based on my initial experience with it.

Nokia MOSH website seems to be catered for the ever growing social networking crowd and it has a mobile site where you can access the MOSH website on your handset(Nokia handset preferably). The site interface and layout looks pretty clean, but it lacks a certain sense of simplicity as all the content seems to be laid out on the screen for me and it gives a cluttered air to it. I browsed through the various content categories such as Images, Games etc and I noticed that there are already a few people uploading content onto Nokia MOSH.

So getting an audience does not seem like an issue, but the one major stumbling block for wireless data surfing is the price. With telcos still charging users using a per KB scheme. No amount of attraction would force users to forget the pain barrier of seeing their phone bill incur a charge of $300 due to surfing the net on their mobile phone. Internet surfing really took off when ISPs removed their per MB charge and changed to a flat fee model and the mobile space is not different.

Thankfully, some telcos are slowly seeing the changes on the horizon and slowly moving away from a per KB charge to a flat fee charge. So when per KB charge is more of the exception than the rule. One of the obstacle for mobile web surfers will be removed.

After a long wait, my first technical article has been published on www.mobilegd.com. www.mobilegd.com is a website that focuses on mobile game development and my article is about creating a J2ME midlet that will connect to a server and then retrieve a response. Being a regular on www.j2meforums.com, it was pretty noticeable to me that there were quite a number of people asking about how do they use their midlet to connect to a server and then retrieve a response. So that was the sole inspiration for my first article.

I remember that when I was starting out on J2ME game development, I relied a lot on technical articles to help me through and now that I am well versed in J2ME development, I guess it is time to give something back to the community. It is my intention to write more articles on J2ME and maybe game development in future as this will be my way of contributing to the industry and I intend to make it a point to include downloadable codes for all my technical articles.

Puzzle Quest, 1 of the most original RPGs that I have played so far is finally coming to the mobile phone. Although I have not been trying out new mobile games of late due to the work load. I still make it a point to keep up with the latest in the wireless space. Now I have 1 more mobile game to look forward to and to keep me occupied when I am waiting for the bus.

D3 Publisher has announced that Infinite Interactive’s hit Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords – already a hit DS/PSP title and coming soon to Xbox Live Arcade – will be expanding to the Wii, PlayStation 2, PC, and mobile phones, with THQ handling PC and mobile publishing.

Said Puzzle Quest designer and Infinite Interactive CEO Steve Fawkner, “The lightning quick acceptance and praise we received from fans and press for the fun, deeply immersive gaming experience we created by mixing RPG elements with puzzle gameplay were a dream come true when Puzzle Quest launched. The gaming community has offered such warm support and we are elated to open the game up to more fans by offering new ways to play.”

Article taken from http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14718

A nice article with an interview with John Carmack regard mobile games and the Nintendo DS.

While the onset of Epic’s Unreal engine and the emphasis of casual games has taken a little shine off of his star, taking a meeting with John Carmack still feels like the rarest of events. It’s something like climbing up to the peak of a mountaintop to converse with a seer.

So it went at this year’s E3 Business and Media Summit. Safely esconced in a lux private room at the ultra-chic Hotel Oceana, Carmack entertained very few E3 visitors this year. GamePro was one of the websites lucky enough to spend an hour of one-on-one time with the legendary programmer.

Interestingly, the focus in this conversation revolved around Carmack’s work on something new and different: a mobile games and Nintendo DS engine. In recent months, Carmack’s wife Anna Kang has launched Fountainhead Entertainment Software, a mobile gaming company that has produced Doom RPG — widely recognized as one of the more interesting mobile games released in the last three years and, most recently, Orcs & Elves 1 and 2. Both are games that combine the first-person perspective of a 3D shooter with a turn-based approach to combat.

From Carmack’s perspective, the mobile scene is fascinating because of what the programmer calls “the value of iteration.”

“From a development perspective,” he told GamePro, “The evolutionary cycle — the ability to iterate two or three times in a year – is really exciting. If you have three chances, you’re going to get it right.”

Read on for more interesting snippets from GamePro’s wide-ranging hour-long conversation with

Carmack: On id Software’s model for developing IP…

“We’ve got a sneaky plan for IP. Orcs & Elves is a new IP [intellectual property] that we’re going to migrate from the mobile platform to the Nintendo DS. This is a first for gaming…for the first time, we’re actually going to port the game up, instead of down. In the process though, we’re exploring a new way to develop new franchises…in the process, we’re going to pull our IP forward.”

“We think it [Orcs & Elves] is great – it’s one of the best. “

On mobile game design…

“When a high-end title costs $20 million dollars, you can’t really take risks. With mobile games you can…if you ever have the thought, “This would be soo cool,” you can actually experiment with it on the mobile platform.”

“The interesting thing about most mobile devices is that they have numerous limitations, but they’re actually very powerful computers…the ARM processors on some of these devices are actually more powerful than the Nintendo DS.”

“We believe there are many new directions we can explore…it’s a damn shame that the main strength of the platform is that it’s a communications device, but that the developers did such a crummy job with the network implementation.”

“I had a blast doing the DS engine…Twice a year, I lock myself into a hotel room and start coding. This year, it was like going back in a time warp. Here I am 10 years later and the beauty is that I actually know now what I would have done differently then.”

“…”Nintendo’s engineers made some classic rookie mistakes with the 3D…but I love the architecture from a programming perspective.”

“Fountainhead is pretty close to tapping out the value of my engine…they’re hacking beyond the core design…I’m going to have to redesign it and revisit the cell phone engine.”

On id Software, game and 3D engine development…

“Id Software has definitely gotten trapped in the first person shooter genre. It’s possible that we could get trapped in into the same with these turn-based action games.

“We’re talking about doing a Quake Arena-type DS game…it feels like a good fit for the DS. I’m psyched to experiment with network play.”

“I’m too minimalist…I’ve come to realize that this is a limitation…but that’s my style.”

I’ve always heard that new phone processors are more powerful than the DS and GBA, but now Carmack confirms it. So even with a faster processor, mobile phone games are still hampered by a lack of video RAM(Sony Ericsson phones are the exception here) and a development language that abstracts out all the low level stuff for the developers(J2ME).

Recently, with a huge influx of work coming in. I am considering not to take part in the MDA funding scheme which I’ve posted more information here. It would be a big regret if I am unable to take part in the MDA funding scheme, but there is always next time.

This interview with Mike Juntao Yuen of Qualcomm provides an insightful look about the future of mobile games and what he thinks need to be improved in order to get more people to play mobile games.

I think if operators look at the retail and packaged goods business, some of the basic things they could do is just spend time improving the discovery, shopping, merchandising, and marketing of applications. Improving that in general is going to put the mobile gaming industry in that upward growth path again.

The underlying technology, from my standpoint, is really not an issue. It’s not about whether we have enough horsepower in the chipsets, or if the network is fast enough, or any of the other infrastructures built around that, it’s really the basic plumbing that needs to be addressed.

He has hit the nail right on the spot with that. I have a few mobile gamer friends and they are totally clueless on where to go to get quality mobile games and 1 of them is an IT project manager. If even techies have no clue on where to go for quality mobile games, guess where will the rest of the everyday gamers go?