Seattle Is A Hot Spot For Wireless Gaming

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer takes a look at the mobile gaming industry, which IDC expects to reach $1.5 billion in annual revenue in the next three years. The article cites that due to Nintendo, Microsoft, T-Mobile and Cingular maintaining operations in Seattle, the area has developed into a wireless gaming hotspot with a number of startups tackling the market.

Seamus McAteer at Seattle-based M:Metrics said, "Wireless gaming is exiting puberty. It is becoming a market for grown-ups." According to M;Metrics, "about 18 percent of U.S. cell phone subscribers played at least one mobile game in July, with nearly 10 percent playing a game once a week. Still, only 3.4 percent of wireless subscribers paid for a mobile game download in July."

McAteer noted that the mobile gaming market is starting to attract some of the bigger companies, such as Electronic Arts, Disney and Yahoo. He remarked that "As some of these big media brands enter, they will be bringing a lot of direct-to-consumer marketing clout that could force an opening of the industry."

McAteer predicted this would bring about industry consolidation and "less venture-capital funding for the independent game publishers and developers," and estimated that "only half a dozen stand-alone mobile game studios will survive."