Mobile gaming is on track to generate worldwide revenues of $4.5 billion in 2008, a 16.1 percent increase over last year’s totals, according to a new forecast issued by information technology research and advisory firm Gartner.
Although games continue to lag behind rival mobile entertainment services including music and adult content, Gartner maintains the market is still promising, anticipating revenues will enjoy a compound annual growth rate of 10.2 percent between 2007 and 2011, with worldwide end-user spending topping $6.3 billion by 2011.

Gartner adds that operators and game providers can increase usage via game demos and advertising-funded titles–in addition, the firm suggests more tailoring their gaming services to individual consumer demographics, targeting smartphone users with more sophisticated games while reaching out to lower-income subscribers with discounted or free titles.

According to Gartner, the Asia/Pacific market (including Japan) represents the biggest target for mobile gaming, with end-user spending expected to reach $2.3 billion in 2008 and hit $3.4 billion by 2011 thanks in large part to low PC penetration throughout that area of the globe. India alone is expected to generate mobile gaming revenues of $450 million by 2012. While the Western Europe market is expected to increase from $701 million in 2008 to $862 million by 2011, mobile gaming in North America is projected to grow from $845 million to $1.2 billion in 2011.

Source: Gartner Press Release

A pre-release version of Nokia’s new N-Gage gaming platform is now available for Nokia N81 users. N-Gage First Access lets N81 owners download the pre-release version of the N-Gage application (through which all N-Gage activity takes place) and try and buy select N-Gage games. Other N-Gage compatible devices will be added to the service in due course. Download here

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Source: All about Symbian via Biskero

The Times Group, India’s largest cross-platform media and entertainment company, announced a partnership with Hovr, the world’s leading ad-supported mobile content and social gaming service, to launch GameZone, India’s first free mobile gaming portal offering hundreds of fun, addictive mobile games to Indian consumers free of cost.

This is an interesting development, when everyone is talking about ad supported content. Now it needs to be seen how operator’s react to this. This will surely boost Indiatime’s portal hits and downloads.

Press release

Source: PRWeb

Came accross an interesting report on emerging business models and opportunities in mobile content. You can have a look.

Link: Mobile Content –Emerging Business Models and Opportunities(PDF)

Source: International Mobile Gaming Awards

Mobile phones have grown from a mere communication device to the heights of popularity by integrating advanced features like media players, mega pixel digital cameras, internet access, and every other entertaining feature you can think of. In today’s scenario, a mobile phone is not owned simply for its communication abilities but also for the advanced features that it possesses. One feature that stands out from the rest is the gaming feature as it attracts individuals of every age group alike.

All of the recently introduced mobile phones come with built in animated games for our entertainment. But since the number of built in games provided by the manufacturer is limited to only a few, a time will come when you will get bored of them. Also most of the times the games provided by the manufacturer are quite boring. Since you do not have any control over the built in games, how can you play your favorite games on your mobile phone?

This is where the latest technology comes to your rescue. You can now download games of your choice from the Internet itself. But what do you do when your mobile phone has no support for the Internet. There are some online resources which first let you download the mobile phone games onto your computer and then transfer these mobile games to your mobile phones using a data cable or Bluetooth transfer.

If your cell phone has Internet support then you can simply download cell phone games using WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Mobile phone games are sometimes referred to as Java games because almost all of these games are developed using the Java platform. You can find all types of mobile phone games like casino games, sports games, action games and puzzle games for your mobile phone.

Today with the mobile gaming horizon gradually brightening with highly engrossing 3D games that have the ability to run on a multi-player format, the world of mobile gaming is preparing to present a new tomorrow. A tomorrow that is full of advanced and exciting mobile phone games that will transform each mobile phone into a gaming console.
By now you must have started to think, how you can actually download these games. Will you need to empty your pockets for downloading these mobile games? This is where HOVR, an online mobile gaming store comes into picture. HOVR offers Free downloadable mobile phone games for mobile phones of all makes. You can download HOVR’s free mobile games to your mobile phone or you can choose to download to your computer and transfer to your phone. You can also point your phone browser to http://wap.hovr.com to directly download free games to your phone.

A new generation of mobile phone games is slated to hit the market in the next two months: Ramayan 3392 AD, 3D-Sachin Tendulkar, Rounders (a poker game based on a Hollywood movie) and a host of other film celebrity games.

While Ramayan 3392 AD is a futuristic science-fiction game based on a comic by the same name from filmmaker Shekhar Kapur’s Virgin Comics, the three-dimensional game on Tendulkar will try to re-create the experience of console games on mobiles.

Apart from India, these games will be released at the same time for mobile users in the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan and West Asia. These games have been made at a cost of Rs 40-60 lakh each. This is nearly four to six times what companies have spent so far on making mobile games. For consumers, there will not be an extra cost for playing these games as companies have kept the price at Rs 50 per download, or Rs 5 per play.

Source: Business Standard

As consumer awareness grows and publishers release more content, worldwide mobile gaming end-user revenue will grow from $2.9 billion in 2006 to $9.6 billion in 2011, according to Gartner.

Worldwide mobile gaming revenue is on pace to total $4.3 billion in 2007, a 49.9% increase from 2006.

Mobile gaming is set to register a strong growth in India even as telcos are betting big on value added services to increase revenues.

While India and China are expected to bolster growth in the mobile gaming sector, revenues from this mobile entertainment in Asia-Pacific region and Japan are forecast to surpass $1.8 billion in 2007 and reach $4.6 billion in 2011, said information and technology research and advisory firm Gartner.

Link: Global mobile gaming revenue to grow 50%, says Gartner

Source:Telecom Asia

Sony Ericsson’s recent patent shows the blueprints for what looks like a PSP phone or certainly an advanced Gaming Phone

Their recent patent filing shows how Sony Ericsson will go about integrating these two gadgets.

The beauty of it all is that Sony will not have to worry about the games for the PSP phone. Just make it compatible with the standard PSP games and Nokia will have a really tough time catching up with it’s next gen N-Gage platform.

Source: Unwiredview

The Anand Bazar Patrika Group  has tied up with US based Greystripe and  has launched a mobile games portal Mjoy4free. The site has around 500 free game titles, and these will be supported by advertising wraparounds. 

Few weeks back Disney’s subsidiary had funded Greystripes and as per their expansion plan in Asia, they have tied up with ABP to provide Free games.

The Mjoy4free model is similar to Hovr’s, which has an office in India but has so far focused on a global market. We’re told that Hovr has recently tied up with VAS magazine XG for Indian advertisements around their games. Hovr also has a mobile community, but apparently ABP isn’t looking at that option yet.

Source: Contentsutra

Mobile advertising specialist and AOL subsidiary Third Screen Media has struck a deal with video game distributor Hovr to deliver ads to registered users who play games on their cellular phones.

The agreement, will allow Boston-based Third Screen to serve up ads to Hovr’s nearly 100,000 repeat users. Hovr operates a free ad-supported mobile gaming service, as well as its MobileSpace social network.

The agreement, in turn, will broaden Hovr’s advertising base to include big name advertisers such as Best Buy. The deal is Third Screen’s first foray into games.

Third Screen’s agreement with Hovr gives it another mobile advertising distribution channel. The company already serves ads alongside mobile videos, text messages, and to Internet sites. Third Screen claims its network includes more than 185 publishers and delivers more than 225 million advertising impressions each month.

Link: Press Release

Source : Hovr Partners with Third Screen : New AOL subsidiary will deliver ads via free mobile games distributor (Redherring)