Mobile Gaming Is Getting Innovative

I’m fascinated with the idea of mobile gaming, and fully believe that it’s a massive market opportunity. I’m seeing more and more ways to game on your mobile, and I wanted to highlight two of them today – NokMote and PSX4iPhone.

NokMote was released right around Christmas by an independent developer. He’s doing some really cool stuff for S60 devices with the accelerometer built-in. Nokmote is mainly for gaming, and allows you to use your handset like a Wii controller for games, but it also works throughout the various menus. Paired with TV-Out on the Nokia N95, NokMote turns any N95 into a motion-controlled gaming system. There’s tons of videos, but the one that I like the most is here, showing off a guy playing Quake, running off his N95 with NokMote installed.

PSX4iPhone is a Playstation emulator for the iPhone, for PS1 games. Most all games work, and you can control them right there on the touchscreen of your iPhone. This is the first PS1 emulator that I’ve seen for a mobile handset, though I’ve used emulators for NES, SNES, and Sega systems on my S60 for a while now.

This is all fascinating to me because it shows how far mobile gaming has come. From the first Nokia’s that sported the black-and-greenish-yellow version of Snake, to being able to play games that were designed for a full desktop computer. The fact that our handsets are starting to now detect movement, and be able to project their displays onto a TV (via cable) is really mindblowing when you think about it.

I still imagine a future of gaming where I’ll be able to play against you while I’m in line at the grocery store and you’re sitting at home on your console system. The connection of console and mobile games into one platform, I think, is something that will really take the mobile gaming scene to a whole new level.

What do you think? When was the last time you played a game on your mobile handset? Did it impress you at all?