Wireless Entertainment: The State of Play

The heralded wireless gaming revolution has yet to happen outside Japan, but the prospects for the fledgling industry are great. Cell phones have reached massmarket penetration in many areas around the world, and the games are certainly one of the most popular services offered by wireless devices. The tremendous success that NTT Docomo is enjoying with iMode in Japan hasn't slowed despite the sluggish economy. The continuing success of (still rather basic) wireless gaming in Japan is still reassuring countless developers and operators outside Japan that there's money and success to be had in the wireless market.

Cultural Differences

	Hello Kitty @ Y200 x 22 Million =........

Undoubtedly, part of iMode's success in the Japanese market is down to simple cultural differences. You just have to take a look at the majority of cell phones on sale in Japan. They look like little plastic toys instead of the techy and sleek Nokia's, Motorola's and Ericsons available elsewhere. Most Japanese consumers like to customize their phones by adding little ribbons and such to their phones instead of downloading new ringtones or graphics, which is a very successful business in Europe. It is important to remeber that iMode phones are connected to the iMode network all time, you don't have to access it separately. A press of a button whisks you to the iMode network where Docomo has handily has included everything you might want. Certainly this ease of use is far more inviting than traversing through countless separate, slow to load WAP sites. Docomo's inspired strategy of sending Hello Kitty messages and little applications to subscribers is simple, to say the least, but a few hundred yen for every update when you have over 22 million users… well, you do the math.

An interesting point was brought up at the recent Game Developers Conference Europe when discussing why mobile phone take-up in the US is still very slow when compared to Europe and Japan. An average consumer in Europe buys a new cell phone around every 12-16 months (though this is very quickly changing to a 18-36 month cycle). Right now, the prices of new cell phones drop drastically in less than six months (by around 40 percent) after their introduction to the market. So far each new revision of a popular cell phone line brings enough new features to warrant a purchase for most consumers, even if we are only talking about extended battery life. As indicated by the slowing take-up rate, this is changing. A similar thing is happening in Japan. While the US market has most of the same phone models, in terms of appearance and technology, as Europeans, the take-up has been relatively slow despite the excellent economy right up until recent times.

Cultural differences come in to play and it's quite probable that much of the reasons why the US isn't adopting cell phones are simple ones, like the beeper and the answering machine. In Europe, beepers and to a lesser extent answering-machines have never been popular, making cell phones far more attractive than they are for American consumers who still suffer from lacking cell phone network coverage.

It's the simple things like the fact that a large majority of Japanese and European consumers use the train and/or the bus to go to work. Since the distances travelled are quite lengthy, there's plenty of time to make it go faster by messing around with your cell phone or PDA. iMode being so easy to use, not much incentive is required to get a user hooked, same with Nokia's hugely popular Snake game. Easy to use and grasp, those are the ingredients of successful wireless applications right now. Japanese consumers like to use their phones in their homes as well, during th eir off-time. Right now US consumers tend to turn their phones off when they get home, who wants more distraction when you are having your off-time?

While customs in Europe and US (where personal cars instead of public transportation are the main choice for commuters) differ, but it's all the small cultural differences combined that have resulted in the varied success of wireless gaming across the world.

Payment methods and customs are another obstacle. Wireless services are mostly paid per download in Japan and Europe. For consumers in the US, having gotten used to free locals calls and having to pay by minute for wireless services, it just isn't very inviting. The cost of downloading the latest Destiny's Child single as your new ringing tone isn't high at all, for Europeans the money spent on such services is accumulated into the monthly cell phone bill, whereas many US consumers have pre-paid credit which makes you rather vary of spending valuable credit on such extras. Paying for wireless services isn't a problem in Europe, but it is one of the hurdles in the US wireless entertainment market.

It can be argued all too convincingly that the killer app content isn't there, but another major problem is the still the shaky and limited nature of US cell phone networks. Calls often hang up in the middle of a conversation and many areas, even in large metropolitan areas, feature weak coverage areas. The support stations being few and far between, the quality of transmissions isn't at high enough levels all across the US and a weak signal also drains batteries far faster than when running under "optimum" conditions. The general consensus still seems to be that cell phones just don't work well enough in the states to warrant full usage, Europe had a similar attitude only a few years ago but now line-problems are a very, very rare occurrence.

So far, no one is buying a cell phone for the games it offers, but rather for their afore-mentioned technological advances. Actually, Nokia's finding out that the majority of it's users preferred the original and simpler version of Snake than the current one which tries a bit more in terms of visuals. With the advent of more sophisticated phones and services, users will slowly but surely get into more complex games and features.