North America and Europe Playing .Catch-up in Mobile Gaming

Park Ass.: Report finds that wider 3G deployments and more capable mobile handsets in these regions will help close the gap.

Consumers in Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries lead European and North American consumers more than two to one in the adoption of both single-player and multiplayer mobile gaming.

In the APAC countries surveyed, 28% of consumers play single-player mobile games on at least a weekly basis, versus 13% in Europe and 8% in North America. Further, 7% of Asia-Pacific consumers play multiplayer mobile games on a weekly basis, versus 2% in both Europe and North America.

.Cellular operators in North America and Europe are lagging behind their Asia-Pacific counterparts in mobile gaming, but they are starting to increase their focus on this area. .Large game publishers such as EA are also reevaluating market opportunities and investing heavily in the space, so with wider deployments of 3G mobile networks and the continued development of feature-rich handsets with gamer-friendly designs, these regions should be able to reduce the international gaming gap.

3D multiplayer gaming and casual PC-to-mobile gaming would both be good first steps in driving the mobile gaming market. The mobile gaming market could also benefit from innovations such as cross-platform designs that position a mobile phone as an extension platform to online PC and console games.

Games? Wkipedia Red Viking

Networked Gaming: Driving the FuturePubl 20060221