The history of mobile gaming is rather ambiguous, but a major landmark was the introduction of snake by Nokia. This was the beginning of a new era. Nokia then came out with the N-gage, which was aimed at revolutionising the mobile gaming industry but it never really took off. The real revolution came in 2008 with the release of the
iPhone by Apple and the launch of the app store. The fact that iOS was optimised for complex games was just one of its strong points. The app store itself was a landmark invention as it let users purchase games with little effort, making publishing apps easier for developers and buying simpler for the users.
Mobile gaming has risen in terms of importance in the eyes of phone manufacturers, and this is reflected in the increased gaming capabilities of today’s devices. The Motorola Xoom, Apple iPad2 and Samsung Galaxy Tab are some of the names that come to mind. Even though they aren’t gaming devices per se, that is what 90 per cent of people use them for. Mobile games provide simple fun. You can just drop in and out of games even if you just have five minutes to spare. The latest addition to the mobile gaming industry is the Sony Xperia Play and they are already calling it the playstation phone. Whether it is a successful device or not still remains to be seen, but it promises to shake the mobile gaming industry once more. Either way, the future for mobile games looks bright and promising. With sales touching almost $2.3 billion worldwide in 2010, what can challenge its position in the gaming world.