Feature: ' The Future Of Mobile Games - CES Panelists On Mobile Opportunities

In today's main Gamasutra feature, discussions over the future of mobile gaming in a panel at CES earlier this month involved representatives from Jamdat, Motorola, and IDG Entertainment, alongside analyst P. J. McNealy, all discussing the possible mobile boon, and Gamasutra was there to capture their conclusions. In this extract, Jamdat Mobile's Minard Hamilton and Motorola's Jason Rubinstein argue over the potential of multiplayer gaming on a mobile network: "We found a shockingly low number of consumers want multiplayer games," said Jamdat's Hamilton. "I think 95% of our consumers buy single-player games exclusively." Hamilton continued by expressing the importance of the female market. "I think you'll see the mobile market grow with casual games that cater to the female demographic," he said, "and not multiplayer gaming." Rubinstein disagrees, and believes that it's only a matter of time before multiplayer gaming takes off on handsets. "There's no network yet, and no points reward system," he said, making an example of Microsoft's Xbox Live service for the Xbox 360. "I hypothesize that once that sort of network comes to the mobile space, people will want to take advantage of it." "More people own cell phones than PCs," he added. You can read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including further discussion of the female demographic, and the "crossover" from console to mobile development (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).