Wireless Gaming To Generate US$41.3 Billion

Europe : The global market for wireless gaming services will grow from US$561 million in 2002 to US$41.3 billion in 2007 according to the new report from The Research Room – Wireless Gaming: Strategies for Profit. The majority of this revenue will be driven from Java and BREW downloadable games and the additional traffic that the networked and multiplayer games generate on the mobile data networks.

“The wireless gaming market is being formed at the cross-roads of three of the most exciting and fastest growing markets from the last five years – gaming, the Internet and wireless services,” said Tim Sheedy, Managing Director of The Research Room. “The recent history of the IT industry is dominated by the growth of services generated by the amalgamation of two previously separate service – messaging and the Internet gave us e-mail, messaging and wireless services gave us SMS, gaming and the Internet is in the process of creating a huge opportunity for online gaming, and wireless, gaming and the Internet will create a new market for interactive and multiplayer wireless gaming services. Nokia is about to redefine the concept of wireless gaming with its N-Gage wireless gaming deck, and many games developers and publishers along with mobile operators are beginning to realise the potential to profit from this new market.”

The market for wireless gaming services poses less risk to the operators than many of the other mobile content businesses – all the mobile operator needs is a solid billing and delivery platform and the relationships with the games publishers and aggregators. The games developers and publishers themselves are the ones who are taking the majority of the risk – as they are the ones who do not get paid if the games fail to sell. A clearly defined partnership and channel strategy will be important to all of the major players in the wireless gaming market in order for them to meet their potential.

Wireless gaming will do more than just move gaming into the wireless world – it will create whole new markets for cross-platform, online multiplayer and networked games – and will provide the games publishers and developers with some instantaneous feedback on the success or failure of their games, along with a potential ongoing revenue stream from sales beyond the initial purchase of the game.

The report Wireless Gaming: Strategies for Profit analyses the opportunities in the global wireless gaming market, and provides clear and actionable recommendations to all of the players in this exciting new market. It profiles around 35 of the major players – including games publishers, games developers, games aggregators, games server platform vendors, mobile handset manufacturers, wireless gaming deck manufacturers and device operating system developers.

The report analyses and forecasts every region of the world (Asia, North America, Latin America & the Caribbean, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East) from 2002-2007, with country or sub-regional forecasts for major markets, including UK, USA, Canada, China, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan. The forecasts cover users of the different wireless games platforms (i.e. messaging-based gaming, browser-based gaming, Java/BREW-based gaming) and the user spend on wireless games on the different platforms – including the cost of buying the games and the traffic that the games generate in their download and playing.