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Monday morning's keynote by Trip Hawkins focused on how mobile phones can become the ultimate gaming platform

The opening keynote for the 2007 Game Developers Conference, presented by Digital Chocolate's Trip Hawkins, focused on how to make mobile phones the "ultimate game platform," as the mobile market has been disappointing the past few years.  As the technology going into mobile phones continues to advance, so to will the games and software.

Game innovation for mobile phones was advancing in a shockinly quick manner, but the past several years have been lackluster for a number of reasons that Hawkins noted during the keynote.  Due to game development being nothing but "safe bets," innovation has not been what the consumers and developers hoped for.

"Only five percent of mobile phone users have successfully downloaded games," Hawkins said during the keynote. 

To help force a new revolution in the mobile market, mobile developers need to make a number of changes.  For example, even though retro games are popular, expansion is unable to occur if people simply play retro games rather than purchase new, more technologically advanced games.

Another important change is that developers need to continue to focus more on the "casual" gamers instead of the "hardcore" gamers.  Word of mouth is absolutely vital to help consumers continue to purchase games that are being developed for mobile phones, which is increasingly difficult if games are more focused towards a small target audience.

Larger publishers will also need to be more willing to take risks, and also need to consider branching away from simply offering "second rate" games.

While there seemed to be a bit of spite during the opening keynote, Hawkins did acknowledge a bright future for mobile gaming.   Hawkins predicted mobile data will catch up to voice services over the next several years, with hundreds of billions of dollars globally on the line.  As people begin to look for new social methods, including playing games together on the mobile phone, the social value of these games should increase.

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I thought...
By exdeath on 3/5/2007 2:25:26 PM , Rating: 4
...that the ultimate gaming platform was going to be the 3DO?




RE: I thought...
By darkpaw on 3/5/2007 2:46:57 PM , Rating: 2
You read my mind..

Soon as I saw Trip Hawkins' name, I was like "damn this guy is still in the business and people actually still trust them with their money?"

Can't say I didn't have fun with my 3do though. Of course I didn't pick it up until it was already a failed system, but at the time I got one $50 for a cd enabled system was still a steal (and $5 a game on the clearance racks just made it all the better).


RE: I thought...
By ToeCutter on 3/5/2007 4:32:23 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
...that the ultimate gaming platform was going to be the 3DO?


"Why won't you die?!?!" - Austin Powers

Trip Hawkins, John Romero and Nolan Bushnell: Washed up has-beens that make headlines anytime they open their mouths, despite their irrelevence in the gaming world.

Gems of wisdom, courtesy of Trippy H:

HD will only be relevant in the long run if applications like football use it effectively to enable you to see more of the field.

I don't think prices will go up, in part because gamers can always rent the games.

But we're fairly comfortable that our next generation hardware will blow everything those guys are doing out of the water!

May I remind everyone that rocket scientist Hawkins released the first 3DO console in 1993, offering it for a cool $699 .

That's $970 in "Today Dollars".

(And you thought the PS3 was expensive?!)

Why does the gaming press continue to consider their opinions news?


RE: I thought...
By Rollomite on 3/5/2007 4:58:36 PM , Rating: 3
Oh the good old 3DO. All I can say is, yes, the system was a horrible failure in the end, but the Street Fighter II Turbo for that system was THE definitive version of Street Fighter at that time. Not $639 worth of SFII, but hey. As far as mobile phones go, c'mon. Who in their right mind believes that the next big thing in games will happen on a 2 inch screen running some java application? Espescially when you look at the price these games fetch. Example. I do have a few games on my celly. They are there to kill time on my train ride, or pass the time when boredom is unbearable. One of these games happens to be Tiger Woods PGA '07. This game cost me over $8 and it is a piece of crap. It comes with one golfer and one course. I actually have to pay to download additional golfers and courses. So all in all, to unlock it completely would cost me more than the PC version and the PS2 version combined. This is the future of gaming...ahem...making these burned out bastards money.

Rollo


"ultimate game platform"
By therealnickdanger on 3/5/2007 2:21:01 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah, I've already got one:

ISF-calibrated, big-screen HDTV
Powerful audi system
Multiple consoles and emulators to play the gamut of videogames available
Comfy couches
Snacks

If I can get all that on a cell phone, I'll be mighty impressed.




RE: "ultimate game platform"
By Dianoda on 3/5/2007 3:32:14 PM , Rating: 3
The only thing I have ever really wanted to play on my phone (Samsung M610 on Sprint) is retro games. This mainly because trying to play a game much more complex than Pac-Man and Tetris using the button layout on most phones makes for unnecessary difficulty because of poor controls (in addition to a small, vertically oriented screen). And who honestly thinks of their cell phone as a gaming platform?

I mean, sure, my phone can play videos and mp3's uploaded from my computer, but it's no match for an iPod-type device, nor is it comparable to a DS or PSP for gaming, nor is it's camera comparable to a dedicated camera. It’s a cell phone, I really just want to make and receive phone calls on it, everything else is excess. That the cell phone gaming market would be much smaller compared to the overall market for cell phones should not be a surprise.

Developers for this platform need to realize (and most likely do) that for the vast majority of individuals, the only reason they would play a game on a cell phone is to burn time using the only method available to them (more of a last resort to escape from boredom than something you would set aside time to do). The games for this platform should ideally be simple, familiar, accessible and addictive. Thus, retro games prevail.


<no subject>
By Scabies on 3/5/2007 3:01:36 PM , Rating: 2
Two things are stagnating progress in cell phones.
1: the RAZR. Everyone has one, and they havent changed much since being released.
2: mp3's, to the horror of audiophiles everywhere. People are so thrilled with low quality MP3's played back on fraction-of-a-watt single-channel phone speakers, and it has always mystified me. Sure, integration and "one device for all needs" instead of "one device for each need" is nice, but talk about shooting low!

Not that I really want to play much of anything on a little 1.3in screen. As cell phones get smaller, portable games, in this sense, will become less and less appealing. Now, if you can slap a decent video processor in a phone and stick an omni-AV plug on it somewhere so you can hook it up to your tube for 640x480 or more..

wait why would you want to play games on a phone?




RE: <no subject>
By Scabies on 3/5/2007 3:03:21 PM , Rating: 2
er, forgot to mention
with mp3's and the RAZR (and derivatives) no one really wants more, hence the "safe bets"

I imagine the same kind of logic follows for billing mobile users. "Let's just stick with expensive and lucrative, it's worked up till now"


Ultimate Game Platform
By Namicus on 3/6/2007 11:53:57 AM , Rating: 2
Hawkins is an idiot. Immercenary for 3DO was brilliant.




RPG's for the Celly
By TimberJon on 3/6/2007 11:57:29 AM , Rating: 2
Not too long ago, before my Razor was stolen.. I had downloaded an RPG version of DOOM. It was pretty good.. short but good.

It was first person shooter based, but also RPG-like with level ups and more powerful weapons as you advance.

I was thinking it would be nice if they could release old RPGs reformatted for mobile platforms, or create new ones FROM the old ones. a game that originally fit on 2 gigs could probably be downgraded to about 400 megs after graphic reduction for the phone.

I want to see games that are lengthy, you can save, return to, enjoy playing and make you anxious to resume.

Memory density is improving a great deal.. Better basic storage for phones in the future would have to be a key element to game storage and downloading. OR have really nice games made on memory chips, and just input into your PDA or phone to play, if storage is an issue.

Bring it on!




Mobile Phones 4 Gaming?
By thatguy39 on 3/6/2007 1:36:28 PM , Rating: 2
Mobile phones... future of gaming?

I'm sorry but that's just plain ol' stupid.

People have giant TV's now. I have a 37" LCD, though not the biggest it's still hard to go from that to a 2" phone screen. I love my DS lite but even then, the screen is bigger then I would want on my cell.

So you guys are saying this is a jerk from the 3DO?

Good god... if people are following his words of wisdom, God help us all...




"This is about the Internet.  Everything on the Internet is encrypted. This is not a BlackBerry-only issue. If they can't deal with the Internet, they should shut it off." -- RIM co-CEO Michael Lazaridis









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