Mobile phone game developers were gaga for iPhone, and iPod touch at GDC last week. The GDC Mobile Summit was dominated by discussion about the App Store gold rush. Meanwhile, Nokia and Qualcomm avoided their mutual mindshare loss to Cupertino by focusing on their marketshare dominance in emerging markets. Nokia waxed poetic about N-Gage, and Qualcomm launched a 3G-network-dependent, BREW-friendly game console. At least they showed up. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony mainly focused on promoting their console platforms at GDC. Adobe showed off Shockwave on the desktop instead of Flash Lite. Sun, Google, and Palm were largely MIA.
Palm probably felt that it's premature to promo WebOS for games, or anything else for that matter. Google is flying high in Apple's slipstream with Android positioned as the platform for future non-Apple mobile devices. Encountered several game developers who were working on Android at the expense of Windows Mobile. Microsoft's smartphone business seems to be most vulnerable in the iPhone's wake. Of course, Redmond has the cash to bide their time with WinMo while they enlist Apple, Google, Nokia, and others to takeover RIM's server business by licensing ActiveSync to all of them. Unfortunately for RIM, Ballmer's minions decided that they would sell more Exchange $erver if it featured some of the mobile functionality of BlackBerry Enterprise $erver—but for anyone's hardware. Microsoft can revisit gaming on WinMo later, or release a handheld Xbox after they've finished feasting on the low hanging fruit.
