Chas and Alex,
I don't know if you could say that there has been a
killer game here in Japan, but I think that there have
been a lot of really good ones. The 3-D tennis and
driving games on Vodafone Live! are great games in
terms of graphics, playability, and realism. They also
herald a new chapter in billing for content in
Japan--you pay an initial charge of between 300 and
500 yen (I think), and don't have to pay any monthly
charges after that. You can also copy them to SD
memory cards (though there is some kind of copy
protection that only allows them to be played on the
handset that downloaded them). DoCoMo has taken a
different tact, and focused on quantity. One of their
ads on the subway that I saw yesterday said "Even if
you get bored, Even if you get bored, Even if you get
bored There are always more games for the 505is. Over
80 games!" (could have been 800, actually, but I think
it was 80)
There was an initial resurgence in classic games like
Pac Man, Defender, Galaxian, and so on. Some people
like me, who have a soft spot for a particular classic
game, in my case Xevious, signed on pretty early for
J-Phone's service, since they had a tie-up with Namco,
Taito, and other owners of classic games.
I would say that the newer 3-D games, however, stand
on their own as quite good games. Recently there have
been some quite entertaining baseball and soccer
games, as well as a 3-D mobile version of Biohazard.
There are also a host of RPG (role playing games),
which are among the most popular game segments in the
Japanese market. In Japan, where a large percentage of
the population commutes by train, often quite crowded
train, having games on your mobile during an hour
commute is in itself a killer thing. There are certain
must-have games--On the Vodafone side it would be Real
Tennis or Ridge Racer, which were the two marquee
games that were released at the same time as the SH-53
phone that suports 3-D graphics and 256kb
applications.
Some people would consider Mobile Post Pet a must-have
application, though I beg to differ.
I think that is the challenge--having a home run
killer app is not easy, but having a great game that
sells well is within the realm of possible. The big
change is that with the new 3-D graphics, bigger app
sizes, and more demanding players, a much higher
degreee of sophistication is required. Todays mobile
games are much more sophisticated than the arcade
games of my day, which took thousands of man-hours to
complete. The tools today are better, but producing a
great game is still a time-intensive thing.
Don't know if any of this helps.
Best,
Nik Frengle
--- Chas Sweeting <charlie@skinnyhippo.com> wrote:
> Hi Alex,
>
> >> Am asking because I'm based in SE Asia and really
> don't see
> >> much demand for J2ME games, or even particularly
> for Nokia's
> >> Ngage. Am not sure if this is the same for
> Europe too.
> >
> >Where in SE Asia are you?
>
> Currently in Malaysia, which has finally got its act
> together
> with respect to working with operators.
>
> Was in HK for 3 years (left in May), which was a
> lesson in
> frustration. Operators there still take the "if you
> want to
> work with us then (a) you will pay $$ for the
> privilege and
> (b) you will be exclusive to us" attitude, which
> leaves third
> party developers with little scope for making money.
> Without
> ubiquitous premium SMS, the only business model
> seems to be
> in catering to the corporate market which isn't
> clamouring
> for apps.
>
>
> >Looking at how things are going in HK, Taiwan,
> >Singapore or even here in Australia, you may not
> necessarily see a lot of
> >people on the streets playing mobile games but
> judging from sales - the
> >demand is certainly there.
>
> I still see a lot of SMS (downloads/ringtones/etc)
> but not J2ME.
>
> Premium SMS is where people are making the silly
> money.
>
>
> >A little extra marketing wouldn't hurt though.
> With mobile games, consumers
> >generally only stumble across them when they go
> into a mobile phone shop,
> >see an advert in some men's magazine or receive
> some directmail from their
> >carrier. Although Hong Kong's SmartTone did a great
> job promoting their new
> >iN (mobile internet/entertainment) portal. They
> set up a stall in Lan Kwai
> >Fong (the bar district) with pretty girls in short
> skirts giving
> >demonstrations of the games and services on
> handsets.
>
> I must have missed that one. Smartone have been
> proactive since 2001
> in trying to open-up their platform, which is as
> much a PR exercise
> for Sun (who seem to have their eqpt and interests
> in all telcos).
>
>
> >If you look at the number of
> ringtone/wallpaper/games portals popping up all
> >over SE Asia, and check out all their games
> available you could say there is
> >an oversupply of J2ME games at the moment. 80%+ of
> them are of fairly low
> >quality and are the same crap that's floated over
> to SE Asia from Europe or
> >USA. (Not to say that EU or USA games are crap,
> but just that hobbyist
> >games that were made back when J2ME was starting
> out are still floating
> >around on pay sites).
>
> Right and agree. I've actually shelved J2ME
> development (I was one
> of those hobbyists) because there are so many out
> there, often
> given away for free. The opportunity therefore seems
> to be in
> aggregating all these free games, giving the
> developers a small
> split on sales, and hawking it to operators - though
> in Malaysia
> the operators have also worked this out themselves.
>
>
> Going back to my original angle though, I'm
> surprised that there
> hasn't been a "killer game" which in turn has driven
> sales of
> the category as a whole.
>
> Chas
>
>
> This mail was sent to address nik@frengle.org
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=====
Nik Frengle
Mobile: +81-80-3416-3090
Received on Mon Dec 15 04:41:21 2003