The Future Of Pocket PC Gaming - Will Java Win Out?

[Jon Westfall]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pdaground.com/interviews/pda-games-vs-java.html' target='_blank'>http://www.pdaground.com/interviews...es-vs-java.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Questions: It is thought Pocket PC or Palm OS games will not popular soon. Also it is thought the future of mobile games belongs to Java games. What do you think about this situation? Will graphics accelerator help to PDA change these ideas?"</i><br /><br />PDAGround.com has posted an interesting interview with the heads of several PPC gaming companies, asking a variety of opinions on the future of PDA gaming. While I don't think the future of mobile games belongs to Java, it is interesting to speculate on where we're heading. What do you think - are we all going to be complaining about having to load a new JVM on our PPC's for our favorite games in a few years?

[Menneisyys]

What do you think - are we all going to be complaining about having to load a new JVM on our PPC's for our favorite games in a few years?

Current Midlet-runner JVM's (for example, the IBM J9 - see this thread for setting it up and getting Midlets to run in it (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=36013)) are very-very slow on the PPC, unlike those on the Nokia phones. (I haven't checked the latest CrEme 4.0 JVM though, midlet running speed-wise).

Furthermore, "real" (not just proof-of-a-concept) midlets are all platform-specific. That is, it's impossible to run a Nokia Series 60-specific Midlet on, say, under a PPC Midlet JVM because it uses Nokia-specific graphics libraries. This means it's highly unlikely that in the near future developers start to produce midlets that would also run under PPC JVM's - it's just not worth for them to develop (and optimize, which may be pretty impossible with the IBM J9 execution speed) a PPC version.

[Phillip Dyson]

[i]What do you think - are we all going to be complaining about having to load a new JVM on our PPC's for our favorite games in a few years?

Thats funny, I've been complaining about lack of JVM for my own personal developement. I'm a smalltalk and java developer by occupation and it shouldn't be this difficult.

Then there's the size, which may not be so much an issue in the future.

[Menneisyys]

Then there's the size, which may not be so much an issue in the future.

Not even now: PPC JVM's are between 3-6 Mbytes and can all be run off memory cards.

[lapchinj]

...I'm a smalltalk...COOL, my first taste of OO. But I couldn't cope since C was king back then and I was young and I liked the idea of doing what I damn well pleased. But I digress :nonono:

Then there's the size, which may not be so much an issue in the future.
Do you really think that it's currently an issue? Most PPC's come with a lot of memory to host a JVM and most applications can be installed to a card freeing up memory until the app is run. I have never tried it but I know that I can run an awful lot of apps simultaneously so memory management on the PPC must be pretty good. It would be great if it could swap to a storage card.

Jeff-

[Kowalski]

games running on java runtime?! is this a joke?
we are talking about high performance gaming libraries, opengl support with the upcomming windows mobile 5.0 etc.
as the new graphics chipsets become more powerfull and will converge to a standart, the ppc games will become much more graphic intensive. this point i dont give java games a chance, they are slow, they tend to have problems and they are non standart(build once, run everywhere? dont make me laugh)

[gohtor]

software like jmonkey makes java gaming quite possible. I do see potential in java mobile. But from what I have been hearing, isn't the next incarnation of windows mobile going to introduce directx/video acceleration? Then Visual Studio will clearly have first opportunities at utilizing this than java mobile.

[The Sarge]

I've heard this crap about "Java being the future of mobile gaming" for years, and it never comes true. Sure, Java games can be downloaded from the carriers, but the same morons that do that are the ones paying $2.50 for a ringtone. People are starting to wise up to the fact that the carriers are ripping them off, so the time of Java games is coming to a close. You can get your M-16 on that!

[twalk]

Furthermore, "real" (not just proof-of-a-concept) midlets are all platform-specific. That is, it's impossible to run a Nokia Series 60-specific Midlet on, say, under a PPC Midlet JVM because it uses Nokia-specific graphics libraries. This means it's highly unlikely that in the near future developers start to produce midlets that would also run under PPC JVM's - it's just not worth for them to develop (and optimize, which may be pretty impossible with the IBM J9 execution speed) a PPC version.

You most definitely can make "real" cross platform midlets for "real" programs. I've done it myself. The reason that platform specific things are added are the typical better device integration, better performance, and more features. (Low end phones are a real problem, because most are limited to 64K jar files, which badly cripples the graphics when the same midlet is run on a higher end device.)

PPC users shouldn't worry about java games moving in. Games often need as much power on the device as possible to be competitive with the other games on the platform. That means native coding.

The carriers love java games because most of them can be made to support their entire phone lineup.

Todd

[Menneisyys]

You most definitely can make "real" cross platform midlets for "real" programs.

Yup - I've only spoken of action games and the like, which do require a lot of tailoring to run with tolerable speed.

[davea0511]

I have to disagree with the comment that the average user is wise-ing up to the phone companies. There will always be people who will pay $ for stupid things like ring-tones, as well as for games with lame graphics. This is becoming part of the bread and butter for phone companies - and being the provider means that they can advertize directly to their target market.

What's more... lucid 3D graphics do not always an addicting game make. In fact tetris will always be addicting for many people (though I've never enjoyed it).

The question you have to ask is what will developers do? They'll do what's easiest and give them the biggest bang for their buck. If that means developing in a platform independent environment, then that's what they'll do, and advertizing dollars will go to promote their platform independent products. And like millions of juicy lemmings people will spend their hard earned cash on it.