Nokia’s VP of corporate strategy, Antii Vasara, admitted to Vnunet that the N-Gage did not meet the company’s projected targets. Vasara said, “N-Gage is still being sold but it was not a success in the sense of developing a new category.” While the company does not plan to introduce further iterations in the N-Gage handset line, it will continue to support existing N-Gage and QD handsets.

This does not mean the N-Gage has been completely disappointing, as Nokia is able to use the N-Gage software platform to expand its entrance in gaming. “We learnt that people want to play games on all devices. As such we are integrating the gaming software into Series 60 phones.”

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According to Marketing Insight, a consumer research institute, 14 million out of 37 million cell phone subscribers in Korea play mobile games. To put it another way, four out of every 10 people are mobile gamers. More specifically, 2.3 million play mobile games everyday, accounting for 6.2 percent of the total cell phone subscribers, including […]

The Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) is acquiring Living Mobile, a European mobile game developer and publisher, as part of its ongoing strategy to expand its footprint in the mobile games category.
Disney first entered the mobile market in Japan through a deal in August 2000 with NTT DoCoMo which propelled its to become the number […]

A new report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers expects an accelerating growth in the global entertainment and media industries that will propel the sales from $1.3 trillion in 2004 to $1.8 trillion in 2009 (average growth of 7.3%). Of this, the global video game market will reach $55 billion in total software revenues by 2009, with the U.S. video game market making up $15.1 billion of this amount.

Player X, a London-based mobile game publisher founded in early 2004, has raised $7 million in its first round of venture capital funding. Investors in this round include venture capitalist Arts Alliance and sports licensing firm Bullion International.

In addition, Player X has added SEGA veteran Nick Alexander as Chairman of its board of directors and Fox Kids Europe founder Ynon Kreiz as a non-executive board member.

Tiger Telematics recently filed its 10k (annual report) with the SEC and is planning on filing its 10Q (quarterly report) shortly to remain up to date. After the company files its 10Q on time, it will be able its stock to trade on the NASDAQ, if approved. According to Tiger’s press release, the […]

Tiger Telematics, maker of the Gizmondo, filed its annual report with the SEC showing a loss of $210 million in the first six months of 2005. The company attributes this loss to a large investment into the release of the new versions of the Gizmondo and marketing expenses.
However, with total losses of more than […]

Mobile game developer and publisher Gameloft’s revenues for the first six months of 2005 grew by 134% to 20.4 million Euros, from 8.7 million Euros in revenues during the same period of 2005. The company also increased estimates for year end revenues to 44 million Euros.
Gameloft has shown quick growth in the past year […]

Jamster!, a provider of mobile content, is offering a new service that allows parents to enter a mobile phone number to prevent content from being downloaded to that phone.
Jamster! has received quite a bit of attention in the past for being both widely successful and widely controversial. Youths know the company as a frequent […]

Until today, most games available for purchase on cellphones all release at fairly close to the same price. While the price level differs depending on the country and carrier, carriers generally set the price for games and attempt to offer games at an initial price of around $5 per download or $3.50 for a monthly subscription. Prices for a given title will sometimes be lowered over time, but prices have appeared to care more about the brand of the game than the fun of the game.

Industry analysts, including The Technology Suits, have long predicted that the mobile gaming market will begin to segment titles based value, complexity and features, as in the fixed game and mobile console (GBA, DS, PSP) parts of the industry. Casual games and puzzle games are fun, but most of these games are relatively easy to create, and there is significant competition for this space. For example, every carrier is constantly approached with new versions of Texas Hold’em and Tetris style games.

The mobile game titles that have done a better job of maintaining higher prices are the more advanced casual games, such as Jamdat Bowling, and known branded games often tied to fixed game titles or movie releases. As phones and networks have advanced, consumers have begun to see more advanced mobile games such as Quake Mobile (by Pulse Interactive) and the location based multiplayer game Undercover 2 (by Ydreams).

The fixed game industry has long maintained pricing segmentation between new release AAA games, older AAA game, value games and casual games, with continued healthy grown in all segments. The mobile game market will move towards its own segmentation in the future, but many companies have been unwilling to make the first move until today.

Nintendo has been the single most dominant force in mobile console gaming with its various GameBoy models and the newer DS (no offense to our Sony comrades, but you are still new to the area). However, we have heard almost nothing from the company in the mobile non-console market (e.g. cellphones).

Nintendo has corrected that and taken the first step into mobile content outside of core gaming devices by creating Nintendo Mobile. Nintendo Mobile will begin by offering sounds and graphics related to the Super Mario series and upcoming Nintendo games, but we can only hope that mobile games will soon follow.

Consumers on NTT DoCoMo will have the first access to the new offering on October 17th, with releases on KDDI on October 20th and Vodafone on November 1st. Some content will be free, but most initial content will be available for a subscription of ¥210 ($2) per month.

Mobile content/game developer and publisher Glu Mobile (formerly Sorrent, Inc. and Macrospace Ltd.) has received a $7.5 million investment from Time Warner. This follows the $20 million in follow-on venture capital funding round in May led by Granite Global Ventures, with participation from BA Venture Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Globespan Capital Partners and Sienna […]

Boost Mobile has partnered with Blister Entertainment to offer the first two location based games offered nationwide on a commercial basis in the United States. Swordfish and Torpedo Bay transform the phone into a window into a new virtual world.

The Technology Suits issued a call earlier this year for more innovation in the location based gaming arena, and Blister has answered the call first for the United States. Several of us here also know the Blister team quite well and are happy to see their progress. Now a little about the games:

Almost half of the U.S. wireless subscribers now own phones capable of downloading games, and 27% of those (or 13.5% of the total population) play games (premium, free or demo) on their phones. This is up from 20% of those with game capable handsets last year.
The NPD Group invited a balanced group of teens […]

“According to Ziff Davis Media’s annual “Digital Gaming in America” survey of more than 1,500 randomly selected U.S. households, nearly a quarter of all video game players watched less television than last year and expect to cut their viewing time even further this year. The study also showed that 76.2 million people in the United States play videogames, up from 67.5 million a year ago, representing an increase of 11.4%. The increase in gaming follows strong sales of portable gaming systems and reductions in the prices of current-generation video game consoles.”