Handheld Gaming Devices and the Phone

The handheld gaming device market seems to be under threat from telephone makers, well actually by i-phone makers. While, its understandable that anyone who has a phone capable of doing even half of what phones today can, would want it to be a respectable gaming platform as well, its strange that its taken people this long to catch up on it.

After all, phones are the one ubiquitous accessory that literally go with us everywhere, optimistically, even into the ‘wild.’ So then, when phones can play music, take video and photos, would they not play games?

Games so far have been seen largely as just adjuncts to the over all phone-ware. As in no one was really targeting the phone game market, or was really aware of it, but with the latest generation of phones, Snake can be thought of in the same bracket as Dave, and Mario on the computer… phone games are now serious business.

The Nokia N-gauge actually did pick up on this fairly early on, and tried releasing a phone geared towards gaming, with a handheld gaming devise feel to it, complete with D pad and start/pause buttons. But the phone, though it was popular for its huge (for its time) screen, and overly visible/bulky profile, never really caught on as a gaming device, perhaps due to a lack of titles for it.

But now things are hotting up, and several major companies are vying for space on mobile phones, and creating their own versions of handheld gaming platforms. What’s changing is that while gaming might once have been an adjunct to the essential cell phone capacity of making and receiving calls, with the advent of handheld devices, these very functions may soon be marketed as premium, or even mundane features of standard gaming devices.