Microsoft, Nokia and Others to Support Open Gaming Architecture

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,124689,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,124689,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Several big companies in the mobile phone and gaming industry, including Microsoft and Nokia, are teaming to support an open gaming architecture designed to lower development costs, speed up delivery times and create richer content, the group said Friday. In addition to Microsoft and Nokia, the mobile gaming development alliance includes Electronic Arts, Symbian, Samsung Electronics, Texas Instruments (TI), Activision, Digital Chocolate, Ideaworks3D, Konami, MontaVista Software, SK Telecom, Square Enix, and Tao Group. By working together, the group hopes to streamline the process for developing games for multiple handset models and operating systems, and reduce the current platform fragmentation in mobile phone gaming market."</i> <br /><br />Sometimes it amazes me that the biggest of competitors can still see past their differences and can work together to make a better market for the end user. Ok, so a common gaming platform doesn't really make the industry a better place, but it will make a huge difference for developers who are currently wasting a lot of time developing the same application for multiple platforms. This is good news from Microsoft, Nokia, and the rest.

[Rebecca]

I don't see the need.

Why not just adopt J2ME like everyone else in the phone industry. There are already thousand of Java games available that could work perfectly well. I doubt developers will be making another version for this platform of their popular java games when all other phones use Java.

[Mike Temporale]

Well, the truth is that Java isn't all that universal. The developer is still forced to tweak and change things based on the different implmentations on various devices.

Smartphone have Java in them too, but it's not the same as the Java found in some other devices. There's no really good solution for multi platform gaming at this time. But I'm not a game developer, so I'm not really one to talk. ;)

[mandrell]

I dont know how old this thred is, i just found it on google, so if it is WAY outdated, please pardon me.

Actually J2ME
There's no really good solution for multi platform gaming at this time

True, but J2ME Comes the closest, and is getting eaven closer, see the java gaming platform is compatiple with so many phones becouse all it needs is a Virtual K machine to run. While it may not be as powerfull as we would like it to be from a developers point of view it is by far the best.

Most phones support Java, or BREW.
And java has actually created a tool tp port J2ME applications into BREW
http://wbt.sys-con.com/read/230300.htm
If java can port the J2ME platform to most major programs, like it did to BREW it might as well dominate the industry.


Personally tough i am really hoping that Adobe's (Formelly known as Macromedia) Flash Lite will one day become industry standard for mobile games, the language is simular to C++, or JAVA (Not javascript), J2ME, and eaven BASIC, but it offers a much better enviroment for developers in my opinion.

PS - i know some of the terms are messed up (Calling brew a platform and all) but everyone seems to use different terminology when it comes to this....

Oh, and like i said, if this is a OLD, DEAD thred, sorry for posting in it.

[Mike Temporale]

I dont know how old this thred is, i just found it on google, so if it is WAY outdated, please pardon me.

Nah, It's only about 4 months old. :wink:

The problem with Java is that it's not the same on every platform. Java on a Windows Mobile Smartphone is different than Java on a Series 60. Applications still need to be compiled for specific platforms. Which is the real problem for developers.