With the new Xbox console out, Redmond’s next target is games for mobile phones, with plans to overhaul the business as we know it.
Can Microsoft Score in Mobile Gaming?
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Microsoft has been pretty bullish, lately, but all they’ve got to show for it is a big advertising spend, and the market and their competitors have, yet, to make their move. Not forgetting the poor developer, of course. My take on this is it’s all talk.
Whether it’s their OS, the X-Box, or favourite mobile platform of the moment, they’re heading towards the flush. Some pretty cool ideas may be pushed forward by their initiative, but it’s nothing spectacularly innovative, and everyone else isn’t standing still.
I wouldn’t be so downbeat, but I don’t like to see someone, anyone, bully their way to the front of the queue because they’ve got the deepest pockets, nor do I like them trying to upset my plans, which involve proprietory standards as little as possible.
No, they can’t. Not with Java already having a virtual lock on that market. There are about 700 million handsets out there that have Java capabilities–far exceeding analyst expections in 2002 that predicted there would be 450 million Java enabled handsets by 2007. Here we are in 2005, and we have already exceeded by 250 million the number we weren’t even supposed to reach until 2007. Sun has more copies of Java running on handsets than Microsoft has copies of Windows running on PCs by quite a wide margin.
There are thousands of cell phone games out there written in Java, and billions of dollars invested in mobile content portals and such for downloading Java games to cell phones. Basically, Microsoft missed the boat big time on this one.
You should know Microsoft has a very good gaming platform called Windows Mobile and with version 5 they introduced Direct X mobile.
Microsoft also suggested they will make it easier for developers to create games for Windows Mobile/Windows and Xbox all through XNA Studio so it should be easy to port far more advanced games than you see on those horrible java based cell phones.
If your game has to do something complex the cellular java just does not cut it.
“If your game has to do something complex the cellular java just does not cut it.”
False. Java3D is running on cell phones now, and has been for quite some time. I have seen some very impressive 3D games for cell phones written in Java.
You do realize that these games are played on a TINY screen. And I don’t mean the physical size, I mean the resolution on your typical kyocera…
Sure, that will change, although the physical size likely won’t (until full holographic displays are cheap; after they’re invented of course).
Also, mobile games are under a lot of different restrictions from PC games. They’re meant to pass an hour, or more often: 5 minutes. They’re not something you get psyched up about 3 years before they’re released! And yes, people were doing that when PC’s weren’t much more powerful than a nice PocketPC (Daikatana, remember that hype? 6 months, right).
I’d hate to see every cellphone stuck on a Microsoft platform just so it can play games… I want my cell phone to call people! And I don’t want it to get virii via the blue-tooth I didn’t want anyway!
Oh, and make that 700 million mobile devices over 1 billion mobile devices as of the latest figures.
http://www.armadilloaerospace.com/n.x/johnc/Recent%20Updates
Microsoft is just capitalizing on the incompetence of J2ME as a platform. Developers are choosing Visual studio with the mobile sdk and directx.
Sun has failed again.
Yep… That’s why there are over 1 billion Java enabled mobile phones out there. Yes, that is BILLION. That’s why LG Electronis just released a celll phone that uses Savaje OS–an OS completely written in Java, and several ohter phone vendors are also working on Savaje powered phones. That’s why Java games are currently a several hundred million dollar a year industry… That’s why Java mobile game portals are springing up all over the place… Because it is such a dead technology.
I love how Sun haters can make such broad sweeping statements, despite the fact that overwhelming evidence shows Java is very alive and healthy on mobile phones.
Oh… and by the way, it is growing on the client as well. There are more Java client apps available today than ever before.
So by your numbers (and lets say by several hundred million dollars a year you meant 200,000,000), the amount of money they are making per phone as about 50 bucks. That’s not very impressive.
> “the amount of money they are making per
> phone as about 50 bucks. That’s not very impressive.”
The average mobile game only costs about $5.00 or so. This stuff is a lot cheaper then the vast ripoff of console games.
As much as I admire and respect John C., he is far from the best reference to be used in this context. Even at the start of the post he makes it clear “I’m not a cell phone guy.” Additionally, he is a game programmer, and he doesn’t have much to do with the mobile industry, or works with it and in it a lot. Finally, by all accounts he is a C guy. Quake II is completely written in C, and I am pretty sure Quake III is as well. At least all the source available to download for mod making and such is in C. The guy probably would criticize C++ just as well, so him talking bad about Java is certainly understandable and expected. Anyway, I mean, I have my gripes about Java as much as the next guy, but to say that it is dead on the mobile is just silly, considering its wide use.
“Sun has failed again.”
Yeah, that must be why it’s on so many phones, because it’s a failure. You can call it incompetent all you want but a failure it most certainly isn’t.
..fix their QA procedures, or at least the xbox360′ heat problem?
Mobile Java: write once, debug everywhere =)
> Mobile Java: write once, debug everywhere
No, J2ME has not achieved nearly the write once run anywhere behavior that J2SE and J2EE have. But it’s hard to blame Java for this when you consider how much vast variation there is in mobile phones. Difference in screen sizes, difference in display capabilities, difference in audo capabilities, etc. There are virtually no standards.
And if you think supporting more than one mobile phone platform with a Java app is bad, try doing it in any other other available solutions. Java will start to look pretty good by way of comparision.
I think people really underestimate Nokia’s N-Gage gaming device. I’ve had one for a year or so (the QD-model), and while it’s not as top-notch as PSP, NDS, or GP2X, it’s very good as a multimedia phone, has some killer titles (Pathway to Glory, ColinMcRae, Worms World Party, System Rush etc. etc.), and is really cheap. It may not be The Best Mobile Phone Gaming Platform of Our Time (except for now), but I’m eagerly waiting what Nokia will be able to bring us with N-Gage 2. This is not a company, which gives up easily.
I have one too. It’s a great phone. The games aren’t bad.
Nokia has said there will not be a N-Gage 2. N-Gage is now a feature set that is added to a number of their new phone models.
“Nokia has said there will not be a N-Gage 2. N-Gage is now a feature set that is added to a number of their new phone models.”
Hmm, what I’ve heard is that there will be N-Gage 2, but Nokia will add the N-Gage (meaning the first N-Gage) gaming features to their new phone models. I wouldn’t be satisfied with the fact that there wouldn’t be N-Gage 2, because phones are phones, and they can’t handle games with nice graphics. Nokia needs to make a specialized gaming device. That is, if Nokia wants to compete with Nintendo and Sony.
Well, here’s a pic, but it’s highly unofficial:
lnk.in/337p
Unless they’re going to just simply make multiple different “N-Gage 2 -compatible(tm)” phones, which would be awesome.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/11/24/xbox.glitch.ap/index.h…
what a bunch of goofs
ms makes games, apple makes pro apps/computers…the future.
ms taking on sony?
ms and apple teamed together could right now.
Once again we are talking java.
Direct x uses hardware acceleration. Does Java do this . No. I know of opengl for java(Jogl)
https://jogl.dev.java.net/
https://jogl-demos.dev.java.net/
but I don’t know if it’s not there for mobiles.
There needs to be a standard C/C++ compiler.
Java loses taste when it comes to quality graphics.
c#/Net will be strong here.
It’s running on devices with 256 colors… Come on!
> Direct x uses hardware acceleration. Does Java do
> this . No. I know of opengl for java(Jogl).
Wrong. Java 5 uses hardware accleration whenever possible. And it does it without the programmer having to even to anything to change the code. Hardware accelerated image copies are automatic for example.
Little games with average graphics is java’s strength.
High powered playstation portable type graphics is not.
I hope phones or pdas go in that direction.
I didn’t think java can do that kind of work. Never meant to.
Still need C .
> I didn’t think java can do that kind of work.
> Never meant to.
Java can, and does do that kind of work. The Quake engine has been ported to Java for example. THere are also some very impressive mmorpg 3D games written in Java. The U.S. Navy also recently implemented an entire 3D battlefield simulation system written in Java with Java3D.
THe idea that Java can’t do things like that is based on issues with previous versions of Java. Today however, it is a myth that refuses to die. But that’s all it is. A myth. Java can, and is being used for very complex 3D applications in many industries.
Yet another round to become slave of microsoft technology on mobile platform