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Games Entertainment

The History of Cell Phone Gaming 24

Posted by Zonk from the tiny-pixelated-fun dept.
Next Generation has a piece on the short history of cell-phone based gaming. From the article: "The first-ever mobile phone game was the black-and-white Snake embedded in the Nokia 6110 model in 1997. The gameplay was simple, as you led led the 'snake' (really just a thick line) around the screen to collect dots. Mobile gamers would remain color blind until 2001, when Nokia introduced the first color screens; a major step in the presentation of mobile games."
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The History of Cell Phone Gaming More

The History of Cell Phone Gaming

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  • I'm too lazy to do the research right now, but I'm willing to bet you could subtract at least 3 years from those dates and roughly apply the timeline to Japanese cell phones.
    • Um, no. Up until about 98 or 99 most Japanese didn't even own their own cell phone, IIRC they were not allowed to. It wasn't till after government deregulation that the cell phone market really took off. Of course this is slashdot and the Japanese are always the kings of everything. I've been there and yeah it is impressive, but the difference between the West and Japan isn't nearly as large as most people make it out to be.
  • ...to play doom on a 2 by 3 cm keypad with only 12 buttons! Why can't we have thumbsticks?!
  • But at least it wasn't a demo that runs for 5 minutes then tells you to download the full version for $6.99.

  • Article? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by paulius_g ( 808556 ) on Friday January 20, 2006 @06:39PM (#14522809) Homepage
    You call that an article? I was expecting something with screenshots or even movies. And a bit longer than two tiny pages.

    While I'm in the rant, I might as well add my own thoughs. Ready for it?

    I think that gaming on cellphones is pointless. Back in 1998 or in the 90s, it was fun. But right now, it just seems like one big scam to make money. Games on cellphones cost $5 for a piece of crap, they don't last and you don't even have proper ownership of the game (i.e.: buy a new phone, you have to buy everything again!) And speaking of that, most companies also make you charge for the bandwidth that you use to download the game!

    I would better like more intelligent cellphones with a nicer interface. Not a crappy Java interface which lags behind evey button use.

    Cellphones are so much commecialized. I want something that I can TALK, not take photos (for 25 cents) and send videos (50 cents) to "friends".

    • Re:Article? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Errtu76 ( 776778 )
      I have the MDA Vario, WinCE 5.0 based pocketpc with wlan/bluetooth and best of all, internet for 10 euro/month. These 'piece of crap' games are actually pretty fun. I can't find a direct link now, so google for it (or Qtec 9100 iirc) if you wish. I recently installed skype for pocketpc on it, so i can call home for free :) The connection is still a little low, but will be increased soon. I can take photo's and make video's, and email them to my friends, if they don't happen to have this cool device themselv
    • Cellphones? Commercialized? No shit!

      Definition of Commercialized

      adj : organized principally for financial gain

      Last time I checked the people who make these cellphones things are doing so as a business...you know, to make money not bring communication devices to the world for the sake of society. You sound as if you're complaining about Christmas being commercialized:

      "we're losing the true meaning of Chrismas!!! It's all about the money now :(" This is probably true...replace the word Christmas wit
    • Aside with the issues with a game running on a different kind of cellphone, if you have some decent software for talking to your phone it is entirely possible to back up java games from it. It's particularly easy on Motorola phones.

  • What "history?" (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 )
    It's not even started yet. Wait until something on the platform other than a port of a 20-year-old arcade standby is actually fun to play, and then you can start making history.

  • The Short history of cell phone gaming (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    PAST: It sucked.
    PRESENT: It sucks.
    FUTURE: It will suck.

  • Cell phone games would be a lot better if the MIDP standards were more strictly followed, and included some sort of requirement for screen resolution. My phone only supports MIDP 1.0, which is extremely irritating, because it doesn't even dictate things like supported image formats or whether or not phones should do alpha layer (mine does, others don't).

    The keypads on these things also suck. They're stiff and small and not very conducive to good gaming technique. I'd prefer something like the IBM keyboar

  • MIDP Sucks (Score:2, Interesting)

    by LBt1st ( 709520 )
    Cell games will continue to suck untill MIDP is thrown out the window. There's a million different phone models out there and half of them don't follow the standards. It's a nightmare for developers. Oh and here's a fun fact. MIDP allows for One button to be pressed at a time. Go ahead and read that last sentence again. You can forget playing anything but puzzle games. When every phone is running Windows Mobile (or whatever OS is crowned king), then we might start seeing better games.
    • MIDP 2.0 has supported multiple button presses for some time now. Which is probably why mobile games have spanned many genres other than puzzle games (what's wrong with puzzle games?) for the last several years.

      We're never going to see Windows Mobile adopted as an industry standard as it flatly ignores the reality of the market: that consumers want phones with wildly different capabilities and form factors. The lack of standardisation in the current market is a horrible mess, but you can't wish it away. In

  • Nokia 6630 user.... (Score:3, Informative)

    by rathehun ( 818491 ) on Saturday January 21, 2006 @11:34AM (#14526295) Homepage
    ...says that he is extremely happy with his phone. Add one USB data cable, a couple of gigs of games/apps downloaded off The Pirate Bay = playing Prince of Persia, Sands of Time and Warrior Within for the last couple of weeks.

    Oh, and Pang. Addictive, muchness.

    This is why I love the cell-phone market in India. I can switch providers like I switch t-shirts, and there aren't any crappy four-year plans with huge cancellation fees.
  • IMO here are some good pocket PC games (I have a pocket PC phone, the samsung i730).

    Emulators:
    Morphgear (tg-16 module) for devil's crush pinball (highly recommended)
    PocketSNES: FF2+3
    PocketNES

    PocketPC Games:
    4 pinball
    Bounty Hunter pinball
    GameBox Classics and GameBox Gems
    Links
    Mummy Maze
    Age of Empires
    Skyforce
    Warfare Inc
    Zuma
    Baseball Addict
    Soccer Addict

    not on par with GBA games, but adequate and fun while you are waiting for anything, such as a passanger in a car, at a doctor's office, etc. I could bring my GBA w
  • When developers start realising that the games that are best-suited to mobiles are short, simple multiplayer games a-la 2-player Tetris, then more people will take notice. I can't understand why Bluetooth has gone unnoticed by virtually all developers, it's been on many phones since 2001 at least.

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