• Best Action Game – N. O. V. A.
• Best Music Game – Beat It!
• Best Platform Game – Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor
• Best Puzzle Game – iBlast Moki
• Best Racing Game – Firemint Real Racing
• Best Sports Game – Home Run Battle 3D
• Best RPG Game – Zenonia
• Best Strategy Game – Star Defense
• Award for Visual Excellence – Zen Bound
• Award for Excellence in Sound – Zen Bound
• Best Multiplayer Game – Eliminate
• iPhone Game of the Year – Square Ball

The iPhone App Store hit a milestone in late 2009. The number of Apps within the store finally reached 100,000. It was estimated that about a third of these are games. This makes that after about 18 months, the iPhone is the video game system that has the most games. With such a large amount of games, there are only some really great games, but also included are the completely pointless ones as well. The games above are the best in their respective categories. If you have not yet tried any of these games, be sure to check them out in the App Store for your iPhone.

Latest publisher innerActive joins to provide brands and advertisers with in-game and in application adverts

London, UK – 16 December 2009: Mobile marketing agency YOC today announced that monthly page impressions on its UK media network have increased by 41% since June 2009, resulting in more than 240 million page impressions being served each month. The company’s significant growth in the UK means that the YOC UK media network now represents almost half of YOC’s overall European media network which receives over 500 million monthly page impressions.

The latest addition to the UK media network is innerActive, an audience-publisher, aggregating mobile in-applications and in-games inventory across many developers and publishers, and directing it to premium ad sales partners. YOC will work with innerActive to provide brands and advertisers with in-game and in application adverts in over 50 ad-ready games available from various store fronts including Nokia Ovi, Fox Mobile, MTN, Vivid Games, Herocraft and C4M.

Since its launch in July 2008, YOC UK has signed a range of leading publishing houses, media companies and online portals to its media network. innerActive will sit alongside other publishers including 123play.com, GetJar, PC Advisor, Macworld, Pistonheads, What Car, Stuff.tv, Auto Car, Perez Hilton and Peperonity.

“To have increased the monthly page impressions on our UK media network by 41% is a fantastic achievement and a great high for YOC to end the year on,” said Christian Louca, UK Managing Director at YOC. “With us, advertisers can be certain that whoever they want to reach, whatever their target message and no matter what their chosen mechanism, they can get the very best value from their mobile spend.”

Ziv Elul, Co CEO and Founder at innerActive said of the partnership; “Joining YOC’s media network makes a lot of sense for us; bringing us into contact with a number of leading brands and advertisers. We can offer their advertising clients a deeply immersive and effective experience in the games and applications where the click-through rate is more than 3% and the audience consuming this content consists of 20-35 years old males (65%) and females (35%), tech-savvy with disposable income.”

Coverage in the press:

Mobile Entertainment

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/35410/YOC-UK-serves-240m-monthly-page-impressions

Marketing UK

http://www.marketinguk.co.uk/Mobile/YOC-have-announced-that-monthly-page-impressions-on-its-UK-media-network-have-increased-by-41-since-June-2009.asp

Mobile Marketing Magazine

http://www.mobilemarketingmagazine.co.uk/2009/12/yoc-sees-uk-ad-growth.html

I remember the day I got my first Gameboy…. it was a Christmas present I got in 1996 and came with a Tetris cartridge, a game now standard on any modern piece of respectable equipment. With its black and white screen and nearly 5 MHz processor, it was a revolution in my hands. It was great for long car rides or anytime I needed to appear disinterested in things happening around me. The screen was just in black and white, and tiny, I’m surprised I was able to put up with it for so long, actually. Today, look how far we’ve come. I can find the basic classic Tetris, Pac-Man, Bubble Breaker and more on nearly every portable device. So what helped the mobile revolution get to where it is today with all this high tech gaming?

I’m gonna attribute it to these these contributing factors:

1. Better battery life
2. High resolution screens
3. Sensors (aka iPod / iPhone)

What do you think? Talkback and let me know.

Take our poll below too!

Poll: What is a cooler mobile device?

In the near future, social media technologies, platforms and programs will advance and thrive as a major facet of contemporary culture and communication. Technology will continue to open up more opportunities for individuals and companies to connect with others, share and collect information, initiate dialogue as well as craft online identities.  This outlook calls for a change of approach in social media services as well as a willingness to commit to such progress.

Advancing technologies are challenging developers to create social media platforms and programs that continually promote cutting-edge points of engagement.  Worldwide, social connectivity is revolutionizing the way every industry connects to its stakeholders and supporting communities.

With this in mind, fresh possibilities and developments in social media will occur inside of the “golden triangle.” The Golden Triangle offers a visual metaphor of trends and characteristics that fuses together aspects of social media applications, devices, networks and relationships, regarding mobile, social, and real-time segments. This illustrative example encourages agencies and businesses to take a more active approach towards their respective target audiences and clients.

Check out more regarding the Golden Triangle in a great article by Brian Solis.

In my opinion, the leading player of the mobile trend is the iPhone, due to its presently dominant influence and positive trajectory.  The iPhone, one of Apple’s signature and most recognizable products, crafted a reputation for its multimedia capabilities, touch-screen functions and sleek interface.  This smartphone provides the standard voice and text features of a phone while inviting users to update their Twitter and Facebook accounts, research and access breaking news as well as the download the latest up-and-coming official and third-party applications.

With its 3G and upcoming 4G networks which enable fast connection, the device parallels the role of the computer in the palm of one’s hand.  Despite lacking “Smartphone” capabilities of the official iPhone, the iTouch enables wireless Internet and digital connectivity with the similar ease of its touch screen and hand-held size.  In fact, these devices seemingly will eliminate need for the laptop computer.

In the future, Apple’s iPhone will work diligently with location-based social networks, especially with the dawn of location-based tools and platforms.  Today, users are beginning to describe their favorite local destinations on Foursquare.  However, this may be just the tip of the iceberg, as the iPhone may initiate an influx of not only mobile gaming and networking, but mobile commerce as well.

The leading player of the Golden Triangle’s social angle is Facebook.  Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has been a major contender in the realm of digital communication and social media. With over 350 million users worldwide, the social networking site is a powerhouse program that aims to increase the flow of information between people and promotes connectivity on a personal level.  The recent launch of Facebook’s chat enables instant, real-time communication messaging with users, and its surge of users has surpassed the popularity of its rival, MySpace.

With the program’s ever-growing collection of tools, games and other features, Facebook may need to utilize brand advertising. Companies seeking to gain attention or interaction with their target audiences need to adjust their focus towards crafting a presence on the social networking site.  In the future, companies and businesses who utilize Facebook will do so to strengthen – not create – their brand focuses, and to actively reach out to others in a similar sense with Twitter.  Facebook could also benefit from forming trustworthy alliances with other key digital media programs in order to maintain professionalism and profit.

The major trend associate with the forefront of the Golden Triangle’s real-time segment is Twitter.   An important leader in social media web technology and communication, the messaging service promotes immediacy in user presence as well as conversation on a global level.  Twitter’s current influence is reflected not only in a time-sense, but in the way the microblogging service has expanded over generations and purposes.  Users who “tweet” are accessible via Google and social search engines.

In the near future, more companies will utilize the free service to research consumers, build brands and provide real-time insight to users.  The service will continue supplementing other Internet services as it expands with larger encompassing programs, such as TweetDeck.  The microblogging site would benefit by creating, executing and organizing a “home page’ of sorts, which would segment main features of the site.

This could include a more accessible search engine to seek out news-based Twitter accounts, individual Tweeters, official company accounts as well as social media Tweeters.  There’s also a lot of multimedia to monitor, including television and radio content that is increasingly easy to find online. Both Twitter and Facebook may encompass these abilities.

Although communication has always been at the pinnacle of successful business, the advancement of social media will force companies to repurpose and restructure their methods of conversation.  Companies need tangible as well as digital connections to their target audiences in order to develop long-term loyalty. Since all forms of new media are currently at a changing point, companies will need to be realistic in embracing the social media movement.  In fact, in order to maintain a presence ahead of the movement, people need to remember to not only be “business savvy” but “social savvy” as well.

Samsung recently conducted a survey about mobile phone applications in the UK, France and Italy. According to them the mobile users in these three countries are willing to pay more then €5 for each download per application. This survey has given mobile application developers / sellers a positive sign that there is potential growth for this market in future.
The survey showed that 42% users agreed to pay more then €5 for the mobile application also majority showed interest in travel and navigation applications (34 %) other then that photography applications were in second place with 12% and work related applications in third place with 11% users choice, last place was of shopping application with 9% users choice. There was one another interesting fact gaming application were more popular among women then men, with 70% and 57% respectively.

Many people have wondered why there has not yet been a decent, big budget game from Voltron. On a much smaller scale, Sony Pictures has announced that they are going to be bringing a Voltron game to a bunch of different cell phones including the iPhone. This game, Voltron: Defender of the Universe, is going to be releasing soon.

This game, Voltron: Defender of the Universe, features some amazing exploration while players will travel on tricky landscapes as robotic lions. This will eventually change in to head to head 2D fighting.

If you want the best interactive Voltron experience, then it is recommended by Sony Pictures that you look in to getting the iPhone version if you are able to. In the iPhone version of the game, there are more playable robots then in any of the other versions. There is also streaming audio and video from the TV show and Facebook connectivity.

Launching later in this month of December, Voltron: Defender of the Universe will be released on Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Boost, Alltel and US Cellular. The price, depending on which carrier you are buying for, will be anywhere from $2.99 up to $9.99.

Christmas is in trouble for this year and it is up to the iPhone users to save it in “Drunken Santa Klaus” which is a game that was developed and published by ROOT9 Medialab. You are going to have to keep the motion sensor balanced on the iPhone in order to keep Santa Klaus from tipping over. If you let Santa fall in to the snow then he will take fall asleep right away and there is definitely not any time for that to happen. It is going to be even harder for Santa to keep on time since there are Christmas sacks all through out the way. For each sack that he jumps over completely and gracefully, Santa will earn performance points and for each Candy Stick that he consumes, he will be a little bit more sober. He will become totally smashed from any wine bottles and this will be sure to cause a disastrous Christmas Eve. You will choose the difficulty level which is going to determine how drunk Santa Klaus will start off as. Christmas morning is all in your hands so you must do your best to save it. Check out this game for iPhone and iPod touch in the which was released on December 2.

Life just doesn’t get any better……

Coming to a iPhone and iPod Touch near you is the just announced classic, Don Bluth’s “Dragon’s Lair”. Electronic Arts together with the people behind “Space Ace” (available in the app store) have enhanced this classic and are serving it up touch style. This game will be available soon so keep watching that app store people. Press release and more screenies after the jump.

Electronic Art’s just came clean with the info we have been craving. Coming January 2010 to the iPhone and iPod Touch is the popular console title “Mirror’s Edge”.

There will be 14 levels of 3D gaming pleasure for you to play and enjoy. So keep your eyes focused on the App Store come January and hit the jump for the press release and a few more screen shots.

Product Description

The award winning and the most dynamic action adventure game comes to iPhone™ and iPod touch^®.

In a city where information is heavily monitored, where law is brutally enforced, where most people sacrifice freedom for a comfortable life, there are still those that choose to live on the edge. Take control of Faith, a member of an underground group known as “Runners”, acrobatic messengers who are the last source of free communication in this “perfect” city. But a deadly threat has grown from within and Faith finds that she alone is the one that can stop it.

MIRROR’S EDGE ™ in the APP STORE^SM. Play on the run on the iPhone^® and iPod touch^®.

Key Features

EXPERIENCE THE WORLD OF MIRROR’S EDGE -

A place where information is heavily monitored and law is brutally enforced in an effort to create the ‘perfect’ society.

YOUR MISSION -Take control of Faith Connors, a member of an underground messenger group known as Runners, as she races to stop a deadly threat that has grown from within their own ranks. 

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST… AND FASTEST -

Use Faith’s incredible acrobatic moves to outmaneuver the enemy –run on walls, slide down precarious ramps, ride ziplines, and leap between rooftops. Leave the enemy in your dust.

EDGE-OF-YOUR-SEAT EXCITEMENT – Burn through 14 levels of the fastest, most fluid action imaginable. Dynamic camera angles capture the intense action of this unique game.

HEIGHTEN YOUR SENSES- Immerse yourself in a stylish, graphically rich 3D environment flooded with realistic sound effects and phenomenal music.

Many of you have seen the recent movie, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Now you will be able to experience this movie in a whole new way. In this game, based on the anticipated film by Fox, join an unlikely herd of pals for there most entertaining adventure yet. You will be able to play as one of the six popular Ice Age characters in this game. Help them on their rescue mission as they move out of the snow and into the unknown land of the dinosaurs. This land is a scary jungle filled with plants and most importantly dangerous dinosaurs. Coming out on the iPhone on Monday, November 30, this game was developed by Chillingo.

Here are some of the features of the game:

• Choose who you play as from all of the six different characters that you know and love from the great Ice Age movies.
• Play all of the different new challenges. Investigate the entirely new dinosaur world but make sure to watch out for all of the dangers that hide within it.
• There are many different modes for you to play and compete in with your friends and family.

I got involved in computer /PSP gaming in the early years of 1999, while visiting my grandfather (on vacation from high school). One of my uncles, Adrian was then a graphics designer working from the study room at home. From time to time I would run there to play around with his computer, pretty cool huh:-). There, I got intrigued and fascinated by his style of entrepreneurship, so during the day when everyone was off to work, I would go into his office and basically read books about computers. One day on one of my computer explorations, I discovered EA’s ‘Need 4 Speed II’ (a car racing game). From this point, all I can say is that I got crazy about gaming to the extent that when school reopened, I always looked forward to my next computer lab sessions because it was an opportunity to find ‘NFS II’ on one of the computers. Since then (1999), I have played games such as NFS, Bobby Carrot, etc and during those times I never came across one with an African story or even one from Africa (well I never even thought it would happen). That’s what brings me to Leti Games’s iWarrior game on the appstore.

The Company: Leti Games
Leti Games mobile fun for all is a mobile phone game developer company based in Accra-Ghana. It was founded by two friends Eyram Akofa Tawia and Wesley Kiriinya from Ghana and Kenya respectively in 2009. By the way, Eyram is a product of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana (KNUST). It is Leti Game’s aim to introduce the gaming world to mobile and computer games made in Africa by Africans.

Indeed, I must say that I was very privileged to play this game during its development stages as I worked with the developers (Eyram and Wesley) in the same organisation (Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology). I saw it from the time when it was just an idea and it was pretty exciting getting to see and play it on the iPhone. Now let me give you a brief description about the game and how it works:
The Game:

iWarrior is a casual game with great African art and sounds. With its simple intense game play, iWarrior puts you in the role of protecting your village from Africa’s most feared wild animals.
Take advantage of the iPhone or iPod touch accelerometer and multi-touch functionality to defend your village by feeding and driving away the animals before they crash it and feed on your livestock and garden! From the thundering Elephants, the camouflaging Lions, the swift Cheetahs, silly Hyenas and others, experience the wild on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Game Features:
• Quality African Art and Sound.
• Natural wild with realistic behaviour and sound of the actual animal.
• Accelerometer gesture control. E.g. thrust iPhone or iPod touch forward to throw weapon, use tilt to move left and right.
• Multi-touch control: Swipe left and right for movement, tap to throw object
• Stunning natural effects e.g. rain and thunder.
• Breaking and shaking of environment by huge wild animals.
• Multiple levels of increasing difficulty
• Personal high score system
• Game could be played while listening to your iPod music. (Launch game while playing music in iPod. Go to Help/Options and disable sound).
• Realistic animal behaviour – e.g. Camouflaging.

You can get this game on the appstore here: www.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=333224219&mt=8

ก่อนหน้านี้ผู้เขียนได้นำเสนอการนำ Augmented Reality (AR) ประยุกต์ใช้กับ Mobile Advertising Ecosystem อยู่หลายครั้งมาวันนี้มีกรณีศึกษารูปแบบใหม่เพิ่มขึ้นมาและคิดว่าคงเป็นประโยชน์กับอีก หลายๆท่านที่อยากเห็นการสร้างความแตกต่างโนโลกธุรกิจสมาร์โฟนที่มีแอพพลิเค ชั่นเยอะเสียเหลือเกินในเวลานี้

Case Study 1: Branded Urban Mobile Game
Vodafone ประเทศเนเธอร์แลนด์ เปิด Branded Urban Mobile Game บน Android Platform ที่มีชื่อว่า “Go Tag” ซึ่งเป็นส่วนหนึ่งใน campaign การเปิดตัว HTC Magic โดยจัดเป็นกิจกรรมแบบ offline ให้เหล่าบรรดาผู้โชคดีที่ได้รับคัดเลือกจำนวน 50 คนเข้ามาร่วมกิจกรรมดังกล่าว เพื่อชิงเครื่อง HTC Magic กลับไป
ผู้เล่นจะถูกแบ่งออกเป็น 2 ฝ่าย และต้องทำการ “Tag” ฝ่ายตรงข้ามภายในระยะเวลาที่จำกัดให้ได้มากที่สุด โดยการใช้ HTC Magic phone ที่ลงแอพฯ “Go Tag”นี้ไว้ เปิดกล้องและ point ไปยังฝ่ายตรงข้าม โดยอาศัยเทคโนโลยีอย่าง AR ก็จะสามารถทำการแยกแยะ และระบุสีเสื้อของผู้เล่นได้จริง นึกๆไปก็เหมือนเกมวิ่งไล่จับสมัยเด็กๆ

มองดูแล้วกิจกรรมดังกล่าวทาง Vodafone ต้องการที่จะสร้าง Brand Awareness สำหรับการเปิดตัวให้กับ Vodafone HTC Magic phone ด้วยรูปแบบที่แตกต่างออกไป

ถ้าใครสนใจอยากดูกิจกรรมดังกล่าวเพิ่มเติม สามารถดู Clip Vdo ได้ ที่นี่

Case Study 2: Car Finder (นำมาจาก appreview)
เป็นแอพพลิเคชั่นที่นำเอาเทคโนโลยีมาผสมผสานกันได้อย่างลงตัวสำหรับคนที่ชอบ ลืมว่าตัีวเองจอดรถไว้ที่ไหน คือหนึ่งเอาความสามารถของ GPS ที่เก็บตำแหน่งที่ผู้ใช้จอดรถไว้ และสองนำเอา AR มาประยุกต์ใช้ทำให้เวลาเอากล้องส่องออกไปจะมีภาพแสดงขึ้นมาว่า รถอยู่บริเวณไหน ห่างจะที่คุณยืนอยู่ระยะทางประมาณเท่าไหร่ และอยู่ทิศทางไหน
ซึ่งแอพพลิเคชั่นนี้ได้ทำตลาดกับผู้ใช้ iPhone 3GS ด้วยราคาเบาๆคือ $0.99

คาดว่าปีหน้าคือปี 2010 จะมีแอพพลิเคชั่นมากมายที่นำ AR มาประยุกต์ใช้บน Smartphone โดยเฉพาะ iPhone 3GS และ Android Platform ที่ปัจจุบันได้เปิดให้พัฒนาแล้ว

สรุปแล้วจะเห็นว่าเทคโนโลยีดังกล่าวสามารถนำมาใช้สร้างเม็ดเงินโดยตรงก็ ได้ หรือจะเป็นเครื่องมือที่นำมาใช้สนับสนุนกิจกรรมทางการตลาดทางอ้อมได้อีก ขึ้นอยู่กับไอเดียใครจะเจ๋งกว่ากัน

Am Wochenende wurde ruchbar, dass die Finnen der Spieleplattform N-Gage den Saft abdrehen. Nicht sofort, denn erst müsse man ja noch im Ovi Store ein neues Gehege für die Gamer errichten.

Nokia plant voraus: Bis Ende 2010 haben die N-Gager Zeit, sich in ihrer gewohnten Umgebung auszutoben, dann werden Website und Arena ausgeknippst. Der Verkauf der N-Gage-Spiele werde etwas früher, Ende September 2010, eingestellt. Bis dahin sollen vergleichbare Community-Features im Ovi Store gezimmert werden.
Bereits gekaufte Spiele sollen weiterhin auf N-Gage-kompatiblen Geräten nutzbar bleiben. Auf neuen Geräten werde die N-Gage-Plattform nicht mehr vorinstalliert. Statt dessen gibt es den Link zum Ovi Store.
Somit ist es dem Handy-Weltmarktführer weder gelungen, die mobile Gaming-Hardware N-Gage durchzusetzen, noch die gleichnamige Software-Plattform zu etablieren. Ovi traurig. [Ralf]

[N-Gage-Blog]

Nokia-Store: Ovi ist mir langweilig…

Wasssaaaabi!

Yes the iPhone is still hot like it! Today I’ll get into a specific aspect of fun/multimedia: Gaming!

The last time I’ve enjoyed gaming on a phone or smartphone was when I had my W810i: being able to have a J2ME game running & pause it when I wanted to switch to Opera Mini was bliss. Being able to play (unlicensed or sanctioned) Nintendo games like Super Mario via J2ME with great performance on W810i was fun. Prior to that … REAL gaming was using N-Gage games (hacked) to run on my Nokia 6620 – that device was a serious powerhouse!

I mention these two not only for truth but for significance. Both Nintendo & Nokia are loosing MAJOR sales with portable gaming – even the Wii sales has dropped significantly.

Nintendo said it will earn a 230 billion yen ($2.5 billion) profit — the first time in six years it’s predicting earnings to fall.

Nintendo’s first-half profit plunged as sales of its blockbuster Wii home console lost momentum in a saturated market. The maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games now expects annual earnings to fall for the first time in six years.

Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. reported a 69.49 billion yen ($772 million) profit for the April-September period, down 52 percent from a year earlier, and trailed its own May forecast for a 100 billion yen profit. Fiscal first-half sales dropped 34.5 percent to 548.01 billion yen.

Also note that Nokia is finally conceding defeat of their N-Gage gaming market.

Nokia to close gaming service N-Gage

“We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform,” Nokia said on its N-Gage blog, to which a user calling himself Jon replied: “It’s a sad day for N-Gage fans”.

“It’s a sign of a more realistic approach. It’s time to bury the dead and focus on the future,” said Tero Kuittinen, analyst at MKM Partners, adding Nokia had great opportunities in other areas, such as location-based services, micro-financing and mobile email.

This was a long time coming to be honest. The expensive $10.99-35.99 pricing model for games to run on specific dedicated gaming models like Nintendo DSi or on phones with lack of video hardware acceleration like most of Nokia’s N-Series devices (N95 an exception) is ridiculous.

You all know what the Nintendo DS/DSi & N-Gage games look like when actually played right?

Well take a look at this sweet driving game I’ve had for a week on my iPhone!

Real Racing Screenshot

Firemint’s Real Racing & Real Racing GTi!

Real Racing Screenshot 2

This game ROCKS! The GTi version is free as a demo and is funded by VolksWagen in USA with a specific contest promotion to win 12 2010 VW Golf GTi cars – 6 are left! For me this blows ONLY because I’m in Canada and thus not able to participate but the GAME ROCKS! 3 tracks, 3 cars to choose from (GTi’s).

Real Racing GTi Screenshot

The FULL Real Racing game has so many cars, tracks, and possibilities (up to 40 on screen car opponents Real or AI) its incredible for its price of $4.99CAN! The game play, graphics, and wireless head to head functionality are amazing … but the REAL beauty the thing that sets it apart and sets this as a fundamental pillar of all future games is this: ability to upload your recent race video replay to youtube for others to watch! A way to not only proove your lap times but also pure bragging rights!

Can you imaging future frag fest party vids of you maiming your opponent?! Oh yeah! This may occur in future games so don’t fret.

Again I need to highlight what makes the iPhone so appealing … the EASE of use for downloading these games and other apps & content. THIS is what the competition needs to focus on to beat it – SonyEricsson’s upcoming X10 (code name: Rachel) along with PlayNow Arena if released worldwide COULD come close but I wonder if they’re thta savy.

Some screenshots:

Real Racing GTi

This is the App Logo icon.

Real Racing GTi - AppStore Update_1

Real Racing GTi - AppStore Update2

Real Racing GTi - AppStore Update3

Keep on gaming people. Oh yeah  … Canadian Beta exclusive for EliminatePro in iTunes … Ill be working again soon and hopefully with more organised schedule and will be able to test this iPhone more in a business sense

Nokia is now zero for three when it comes to mobile gaming; the company said it will shut down down its N-Gage service next year and fold it into its Ovi brand of mobile data offerings. The doomed service rose from the ashes of the game-centric phone of the same name that proved an epic failure after its 2003 launch.

The emergence of the iPhone has proven that a real market exists for mobile games, but Nokia for years has failed to grow its gaming business beyond a small crowd of users on high-end phones. There may yet be a market for a phone built specifically for gamers (as opposed to a mass-market handset with decent gaming features like the iPhone),which is why Sony Ericsson should try its hand with a PSP phone.

But the N-Gage service seemed unnecessary and confusing given the presence of Ovi, an umbrella brand that includes an app store for Nokia users. If Ovi truly gains mass market traction among smartphone users in Western markets, the existence of a separately branded service exclusively for gamers doesn’t make sense anyway.

Die Gerüchte sind wahr: Nintendo bestätigte heute per Pressekonferenz in Tokyo, dass die mobile Spielkonsole größere Bildschirme bekommen soll.

Ob das der iFön-Effekt ist? Jedenfalls macht sich Apples Smartphone im Gamingbereich breit, was Nintendo sicherlich motiviert haben dürfte, die mobile DS erneut aufzubessern. Die “DSi LL” wird einen 4,2 Zoll Screen haben (93 Prozent größer als beim Lite-Modell), umgerechnet 220 Dollar kosten und schon am 21. November in den Verkauf gehen.
Internet-Zugang, Musikplayer, zwei verschieden große Touchpens und drei vorinstallierte Softwaretitel (zwei Brain-Trainer und Easy Dictionary) heben das Preis-Leistungsverhältnis spürbar an. Die DSi LL wird es in drei Farben geben: Dunkelbraun, Weinrot und Naturweiß. [Ralf]

[Kotaku]

Konsolen-Controller mit Orgasmus-Garantie…

Endlich wird die Sache durchsichtig: DSi jetzt auch in transparent

„Nintendo ist der Welt beste Firma“

Düdelüü: iFön-App im alten 8-Bit-NES-Style

Konsolen: Der Preiskrieg beginnt

Beat it! is an upcoming game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It is not a rhythm game. It is a music game. In this game you do not just need to hit the notes with the beat, you must deconstruct a music clip and then try to recreate it. This game is believed to have much potential.

Here is how the game works: A short clip is played while you listen to it a couple times in order to get the notes down. After that, you tap squares on a grid in order to create a line of music which sounds like the clip you just heard. You have the ability to turn squares on or off by simply tapping them. While you create the clip, a line moves over the grid and plays your selection. If you have placed a correct note in the right place of a measure then the square will sparkle. There is five different worlds that you must beat and each world gets harder and harder as you go. For example, new instruments will keep getting added represented by a new line added onto the grid.

A game mode that may interest people is the free play mode which allows you to make your own music clips. Soon after the games release, a feature that will allow you to share your clips and comment on other players clips.

This game will be available in late October for the price of $2.99.

A great Windows Phone game can be hard to find at times. But the one reviewed here today is a real gem, and best of all it’s completely free. Totem Star Lite is a  straightforward but great puzzle game for the Windows Phone platform. Totem Star Lite does it’s thing suburb on the WVGA devices, and as an enthusiastic gamer who loves the new WVGA devices, and games that work on these phones I just had to test this new game.

This WVGA game(and other resolutions) is available for free via the developer website – Touch Dimensions. Where you can download it as a .cab file to install on your phone. The cab file can be either downloaded directly to your mobile phone or copied over through your operating system with Active Sync or Bluetooth. This WVGA game requires that you have MS .NET Compact Framework 3.5 placed on your Windows Mobile Smartphone device. You can install it through searching around in the search engines and the Microsoft site.

This WVGA compatible game that was previously known as “Dream Catcher” but for unknown reason was later renamed to Totem Star. In this game you lead the destiny of your fellow tribesmen through the stars or so according to the creators of the game. Totem Star is set in the Native American desert sunset. The goal of the game is to Lasso stars of similar shape or color. You can also make combination in as the authors say – ‘an infinite variety of patterns’ which in reality will most likely be quite finite. But there are plenty combinations possible and a lot to be found out in the game play.

Totem Star Lite is easy to start playing, but you will soon discover that the game is much deeper as it appears to be from the start. The goal of the game is to make certain patterns from the stars that spawn randomly in the nightly heavens. The patterns can be found in the bottom right corner of the screen. Just below a totem pole that you have to fill up to have your fellow tribesmen build more buildings, which results into a new pattern and a better high score.

When you need to make certain combinations you can force the color star to appear in the game area by making a certain combination to force a certain color to spawn. The combinations you can make in the game can be found on Touch Dimensions website that you can find with Google.

The game play is fun, and keeps you busy for quite some time. The background music is is very relaxing and the entire atmosphere of the game is just great. Though these days it’s all about finger friendliness of applications and games this one actually plays better with the stylus. This is because you have to draw patterns between sometimes close by stars and having your finger in the way does more harm than good. The game plays fine with a finger if you are not that bothered with getting the best high score that day. In the options menu of the game you can view your current high score and switch between music/sound enabled or disabled. Other than that it’s just a great entertaining WVGA game that works on all devices it was tested on, QVGA, VGA, WVGA and more. Be sure to try this gem of a game, which on top of it all is free.

Find more reviews of Totem Star Lite WVGA Game.

Aqua World is a wireless game that was recently released on Thursday, October 8th. Developed by Shamrock Games, this game is an action game that I am sure many of you will begin to like.

Your task for this game is to free four of your brothers who are being help captive by an evil queen. Playing as the youngest son, out of five, of the king, put your skills to the test as you must defeat four monsters. Show off your dexterity as you overpower obstacles and avoid deadly traps. There is three difficulty levels which you can choose from. Also, there is forty-five different levels which must be completed in order to win including four duel levels which have a time limit to challenge you. Other things featured in this game are eight types of bonuses, special effects, and four opponents which must be defeated.

The graphics used in this game are remarkable and they really put you into the game. Some of the special effects that are used in the game include air bubble traces, re-coloring, explosions, and teleportation. These special effects help to make the game more intense and exciting. If you purchase this game then you will experience an underwater adventure which is full of secrets and magic.

Electronic Arts Mobile has recently announced that Rock Band will be coming out for the iPhone and the iPod Touch next week. Everybody was expecting this to be announced as soon as a mobile version of Rock Band had been released.

There was a list of twenty songs that was released that is supposedly the list which will be included on this game. The formal announcement of this game coming out is supposed to occur tomorrow so keep your eyes peeled for that. The following list is the twenty songs:

• 30 Seconds to Mars – “Attack”
• AFI – “Girl’s Not Grey”
• All-American Rejects – “Move Along”
• Beastie Boys – “Sabotage”
• Blink-182 – “All the Small Things”
• Blondie – “Hanging on the Telephone”
• Foo Fighters – “Learn to Fly”
• Foo Fighters – “Everlong”
• George Thorogood & the Destroyers – “Bad to the Bone”
• Jethro Tull – “Hymn 43″
• Joan Jett – “Bad Reputation”
• Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Simple Man”
• Motörhead – “Ace of Spades ‘08″
• Pixies – “Debaser”
• Presidents of the United States of America – “Ladybug”
• Rise Against – “Give It All”
• Silversun Pickups – “Lazy Eye”
• Smashing Pumpkins – “Cherub Rock”
• Steve Miller Band – “Take the Money and Run”
• The Go-Go’s – “We Got the Beat”

A on-the-go version of Rock Band would be an incredible thing for all the true Rock Band fans.