• by February 20, 2006

The Asia-Pacific region is ahead of the game when it comes to wireless technology deployment. We've seen this time and again.

Now there's a new report that finds Asia-Pacific is ahead of the curve when it comes to single-player and multiplayer mobile gaming. Parks Associates, a marketing and research firm, finds that consumers in Asia-Pacific countries lead European and North American consumers more than two to one in both single-player and multiplayer mobile gaming.

The Parks report, "Networked Gaming: Driving the Future," finds that in the Asia-Pacific countries surveyed, 28 percent of consumers play single-player mobile games on at least a weekly basis, versus 13 percent in Europe and 8 percent in North America. In addition,  7 percent of Asia-Pacific consumers play multiplayer mobile games on a weekly basis, versus 2 percent 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," said Yuanzhe (Michael) Cai, director of broadband and gaming at Parks Associates, in a statement about the report. "Large game publishers such as Electronic Arts 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."

According to the Parks report, 3D multiplayer gaming and casual PC-to-mobile gaming are good first steps in driving the mobile gaming market. The report indicates that the mobile gaming market could also benefit from cross-platform designs that position a mobile phone as an extension platform to online PC and console games. Other innovations the report mentions include the integration of location-based services, social networking, and multiplayer mobile gaming.

"Leveraging unique characteristics such as always-on connectivity and always-with-you ubiquity is extremely important to the success of mobile gaming," Cai notes. "Focusing on brands and franchise licenses alone is not a sustainable model."

The report can be found at: http://www.parksassociates.com.