Hamid Akhavan, Global CTO of T-Mobile, spoke at MIT yesterday. His presentation was very general, but I thought it relevant to those interested in mobile gaming:
- Most successful mobile applications have landline replicas (email, voice services, short messaging), and mobile always commands a price premium. The number of successful mobile-only applications is very small (GPS navigation systems, etc).
- There may be no “killer app” that is unique to mobile. Instead of focusing on new mobile applications, developers should strive to port popular landline applications to the mobile environment.
- Prediction: before the end of this decade, all consumer internet access will take place via wireless networks, not landlines.
- Characteristics of a good mobile application:
- Automatically knows what device a customer is currently using
- Automatically knows a device’s bandwidth capabilities
- Includes location-based services when worthwhile
- Offers protection from unauthorized use, access, and copying
- Ensures that content is presented in the best way on any device and channel
- Synchs with all other relevant devices automatically.
Akhavan’s prediction caught my attention. If all consumer broadband will soon be delivered wirelessly, a mobile gaming revolution is just around the corner. Right now, only consumers in hotspot-saturated major metropolitan areas can really enjoy pipe-rich mobile gaming (and even then, not constantly/consistently.) The end of the decade isn’t far off… time to start thinking seriously about the possibilities! Akhavan’s “good application characteristics” seem relatively applicable to games, too.
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