Wireless Review: Power Up With Wireless Gaming - Company Business and Marketing

Press start if you want to get in on super revenues. Wireless Gaming, a report from Datamonitor, predicts that, by 2005, more than 200 million people in the United States and Europe will use wireless devices to play everything from blackjack to Super Mario Brothers. With four out of five wireless users represented in that estimate, Datamonitor believes the overall market will be worth $6 billion in 2005. The fragmented nature of the American market will make its wireless gaming revenues lag behind those in Western Europe, where wireless gaming in Germany and the United Kingdom will have the strongest popularity, according to the report.

Datamonitor predicts that basic games such as cards, quizzes and bingo will be the most widespread. Their simplicity will allow an easy transition to wireless devices and their mass appeal creates an ideal marketing scenario. Though Sohrab Torabi, Data-monitor analyst, doesn't think it will be long before traditional video-game companies offer games for the wireless market.

Long-time video-game powerhouse Nintendo, however, may approach wireless phones as competition for its Game Boy unit, according to Reilly Brennan, Nintendo senior media specialist. "As far as games over wireless phones go, Nintendo doesn't really have a lot going in that area right now," he said.

Sega, maker of the Dreamcast system, is expected to announce at least one partnership with a European wireless provider before the end of the year. The agreement will be to deliver Sega's games over 3G phones. Sony Computer Entertainment, maker of the PlayStation systems, already has inked a deal with NTT DoCoMo to link its game systems to wireless Internet phones.

In Japan, though, Game Boy units can connect to wireless phones. Nintendo may bring that capability to the United States next year.

With wireless gaming, consumers will be able to face off in 2-way games with competition from a round the world. Multi player ability and location-based technology are expected to push the development of new gaming genres, such as treasure hunts. With faster games enabled by GPRS, Datamonitor also predicts that consumers will pay a nominal fee to download games via the Internet.

So will wireless gaming connect service providers with the coveted youth market?

"It's definitely about the 13- to 25-year-old market at this point," said Torabi.

He believes that text messaging will be the first outlet for providers to pull in younger customers, with wireless gaming coming on strong shortly thereafter.

Don't, however, think that wireless gaming will be just for kids.

"There's also the whole range of older people, which are valid targets as well," said Torabi. "And in the future, all of these people that grew up playing video games are not going to stop playing just because they got older."