Mobile Gaming with BREW 164
KeelSpawn writes "For the most of us who are bored with playing that game called "Snake" -- chasing a black dot with a string of lines -- that likely came standard with your cell phone, here's some interesting news. Try a round of golf instead, or a combat game called "Gladiator." Soon, even the ever popular "Dungeons & Dragons". All those will be playable through cellphones, wirelessly."
Re:Can it play (Score:1)
What about nethack? (Score:1)
I guess you could use one of the keys as an option key to allow you to scroll thru the commands(apply, . , close, tAkeitalloff,
Just a thought
Begin Secret Code:
JHFG_#@9599f999f9amAMANN)@Ml)28fl2KKF03
What about solitaire? (Score:1)
Re:What about solitaire? (Score:1)
Stop right there. (Score:1)
And I don't want nethack on cellphones because it would make my agenda vr3 less superior.
Now if ... (Score:2)
Re:Now if ... (Score:2)
fantastic! (Score:2)
Advanced Games on Cellphones (Score:1)
I think they're available on the NTT DoCoMo phones, there's information at http://www.nttdocomo.com
Re:Advanced Games on Cellphones (Score:1)
We have it here in the UK. At 10p per message, (ie per turn) its cheaper to buy a dedicated games machine than play a single game. Unless you are paying your phone bills with stolen credit cards, it makes no sense at all.
You'll care (Score:2)
You'll definitely care if your favourite app isn't run on your device. BREW isn't run on a whole heck of a lot, though in the US, Verizon seems to be a big fan.
Personally, I'm a big fan of J2ME, though no one seems to have figured out how to make money selling those games. I think the coolest stuff will end up on i-Mode for a while, since AT&T's mMode allows for billing by bandwidth usage.
Re:You'll care (Score:2)
Other innovations that helped i-mode include the end-to-end design (handset, protocols, infrastructure, billing, business model, content selection and marketing all from a single company) - like the Macintosh, the result is an easy to use and attractive product, although quite proprietary. Another key factor is that many Japanese commuters spend 2 to 4 hours per day on overground trains, making i-mode ideal for killing time. There is probably also some truth in the idea that PCs and fixed line Internet didn't take off so fast in Japan, so i-mode phones were filling a gap, and also fitted into smaller Japanese apartments.
Some of these factors can be replicated in the US and Europe - I'm interested in trying something that actually works consistently and has usable and interesting content (i.e. nothing like WAP...).
Stay still with brew (Score:2)
I worked at such a company, and now I'm insane.
I tried to #include "beer.h", and it #included "coconut-strawberry-ring-dings.h"
Now I have an attorney.
I get it now! (Score:1)
I thought the lack of Neverwinter builder tools for Linux and Mac was odd, but obviously attention is being focused on a hush hush port of Neverwinter to the cellphone. All joking aside, couldn't you see this happening at a board meeting?
"So, you want to allocate resources to these non windows thingamagigs, like that commie operating system and that apple thing? It'd never work, focus on the super popular cellphone gaming comunity!"
Gotta upgrade your phone... (Score:3, Informative)
Not to mention that this usually locks you into another contract with substantial penalties for early withdrawal. I think I'll stick with snake if I feel the need to play a game on my cellphone. Or just stick with my PDA for games, especially when I'm stuck on an airplane.
On the contrary... (Score:1)
Nope (Score:1)
Not to mention that this usually locks you into another contract with substantial penalties for early withdrawal. I think I'll stick with snake if I feel the need to play a game on my cellphone. Or just stick with my PDA for games, especially when I'm stuck on an airplane."
No, you're wrong. Jam Dat Mobile Inc. has been providing Gladiator to Sprint for quite some time. Porting it to BREW is a brand new innovation and doesn't change the fact that its already out there.
http://www.jamdatmobile.com/
Re:Nope (Score:2)
Funny, I thought the article in question is discussing BREW, which also mentions that BREW-enabled phones have only really recently started to be rolled out on a "limited" basis. So, that would mean that, yes, you would need to upgrade your phone in order to play BREW games.
Re:Nope (Score:1)
The exact same game that is being discussed is already on Sprint phones. Gladiator is NOT a BREW game, but rather a cell phone game that will now be inserted into BREW. You stated, and I quote:
No one's yet pointed out that in order to even play these games, you need a BREW-enabled phone.
That statement, on its face, is not correct. I can play Gladiator on my Sprint Touchpoint 1100, and it is not BREW enabled, as you state a phone must be to play these games.
Re:Nope (Score:2)
Re:Nope (Score:1)
Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf is, in fact, available. http://www.jamdat.com/ Do I have a point yet?
Japan (Score:1)
Yet another way to gouge customers (Score:2)
Re:Yet another way to gouge customers (Score:1)
PureVis is another entry in this field (Score:1)
Bunches of cellphone game makers have gone under (e.g., Unplugged Games, www.ungames.com), and the rest have been treading water by selling their backend technology. Telecom companies are understandably risk-averse right now (something about laying off a quarter or more of your staff will do that), and they haven't wanted to hear about games.
One company still hanging in there, waiting for the drought to end, is PureVis [purevis.com]. They do a completely visual programming environment that was originally intended for easy production of online games. They started out as GameWorld.com; the name change is a sign of the times.
MAME on cell phones would be nice (Score:2)
You mean like the Nokia 9210/9290? (Score:2, Informative)
Here it is:
http://koti.mbnet.fi/~haviital/ [mbnet.fi]
Probably won't be long before it's available for other Symbian phones as well, like the Nokia 7650 or Ericssony P800.
Re:You mean like the Nokia 9210/9290? (Score:2)
Re:You mean like the Nokia 9210/9290? (Score:2)
Re:You mean like the Nokia 9210/9290? (Score:2)
graspee
Re:You mean like the Nokia 9210/9290? (Score:1)
Re:You mean like the Nokia 9210/9290? (Score:2)
I count this as another advantage.
Most people like to be "in" when they're out, I like to be "out" when I'm in.
graspee
Plagiarism (Score:1, Redundant)
Source: http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
The writeup for this story was, word for word, lifted from the story on CNN, without a single reference made to CNN. Slashdot is very sensitive to such things as copyright (even when it does not agree with them). The submitter should know better that, and the editors should as well. It is suggested that a direct reference to where the quote was lifted be added to this story writeup.
Money Making? (Score:3, Insightful)
With so much money there I'm shocked no one has done it...
With like 10 cents a bet over the phone you could rake in some money.
btw... I just patented that idea
Phantom Fiber is doing this ... (Score:2)
ian.
nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:1, Troll)
Cellphones == for TALKING on, perferably NOT in the middle of F*cking finals.
I swear. The damn things should be banned. Do you realize that people have ran into SCHOOL BUSES while talking on those things? HOW THE FUCKING HELL do you NOT notice a SCHOOL BUS?
Ugh.
Once again, cell phones are for TALKING on,
spending $300 on one of the fuckers is an immense move of stupididy.
Yeesh. buy a PDA (though with the recent story on PDA reliability I could see why you would be tempted not to. ^_^ ) for about the same price. Bigger screen, faster proccesor, more memory.
Then choose whatever cell phone plan gives you a free phone.
I actualy have a problem in that my AT
err
well lets see I haven't actualy USED the accursed thing in like 4 months;
so yah, 70 minutes should last me until sometime SLIGHTLY after I die.
Which means it is a serious pain in the ass to have to spend $20 every 3 months just on the off chance that Something Bad Might Happen to me and I may need to use my cellphone to Call Someone To Save My Ass.
As I said, a royal pain.
(and no I am not antisocial, I just perfer to talk to people IN PERSON. You know, real life? Bleh. Cell phones are evil, I _HATE_ the damn f*cking things, HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE them.
Ugh.
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:2)
Supposed to be
----
I actualy have a problem in that my AT
err;
well lets see I haven't actualy USED the accursed thing in like 4 months;
so yah, 70 minutes should last me until sometime SLIGHTLY after I die.
-----
and so forth
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:2)
......
try this again
------
I actualy have a problem in that my ATT prepaid phone expires minutes after 3 months. Additionaly I have to purchase minutes in $20 increments, which amounts to about 70 minutes of talk time.
Which will last me;
err;
well lets see I haven't actualy USED the accursed thing in like 4 months;
so yah, 70 minutes should last me until sometime SLIGHTLY after I die.
---
and so forth
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:2)
Yes Stupid choice for a charecter but, ya gotta live with it...
For future reference... to write an ampersand write
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:1)
Yes Stupid choice for a charecter but, ya gotta live with it...
For future reference... to write an ampersand write
&
Weird thanks, I always thought that I only had to be careful of stuff in between brackets. ^_^
Of course now with half an assed brain I realize my mistake, it is what it seen when Unicode characters are based into a textbox and then returned by the server (Japanese text with Google for instance)
::sighs::
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:2)
Hey jackass, guess what, that is what they ARE being used for.
It just so happens to be faster and easier to have a computer keep track of all of the various numbers in a DnD game and do the math for them then it is to do it by hand.
The pretty little graphics that accompy everything are just extra frills.
Same with board games or math or such, the computre is used as an AID to something else.
Eventualy they spread out into broad based wide spectrum multipurpose tools; ok great; now we have computers, and hopefuly soon they will be able to make breakfast (err, or maybe hopefuly not!)
But a CellPHONE is exactly that, A SPECIALIZED TOOL DESIGNED FOR ONE PURPOSE Shoving more features into it then it was originaly designed for ends up:
A: Driving your price up higher then if you redesigned a tool from the ground up for the desired purposes
B: Makes the user interface suck
and
C: Reduces overall maximum product potential
Which all SUCK.
People pay HUNDREDS of dollars for a cell phone with VERY BASIC and low level PDA functions when it would be easier to get a small cheapish PDA and glue a cheap cellphone on to the back of it (not over the battery casing!) and have all of your problems solved at once.
But noooo, people have to continue to act STUPID.
Not to mention that now I will have to put up with some ASSHOLE having even MORE bleeps and bloops going from their phones during class.
May I give a quick Amen to the proffesors out there who auto-boot anybody STUPID enough to bring a cellphone into class?
Like of them said;
"You ever heard the expression 'Treat every gun like a loaded gun'? Well I have the same rule of cellphones, 'treat every cell phone like it is on'. No cellphone is ever really off, so to prevent any troules just do not bring them into my classroom at all."
Love that policy.
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:2)
Becareful of your statments... not everything fits into the boxes you draw for them.
Re:nnonononon NO DAMNIT (Score:1)
Not currently playing FPSs they are still doing that; just with weird physics.
::Grins::
Homebrew Programs? (Score:1)
Re:Homebrew Programs? (Score:2)
They ended up patching GCC's ARM support a lot. The phones use a offset based memory layout, but GCC ARM outputs position independent code. By the end of the project they'd gotten a large number of pre-existing games to compile and load onto the phone.
Look for these tools soon.
Dungeons & Dragons: Good excuse (Score:3, Funny)
[*] I don't have a mobile in real life, but it was too tempting not to post this.
What about J2ME (Score:1)
Re:What about J2ME (Score:2)
J2ME doesn't have multimedia capabilities just yet. There are multimedia extensions in the works right now, but it'll be a year or more before we see them in mobile phones.
The BREW stuff is Qualcomm's proprietary method for doing this stuff and IMHO not going to be around for the long haul, once Sun gets the multimedia stuff worked out.
-Russ
Re:What about J2ME (Score:1)
I couldn't agree more. You can't pull off propertiary stunts like that, unless you have an ungodly market share. Now considering the fact that nokia too has jumped on the J2ME bandwagon, i don't think BREW will be remembered a couple of years from now.
The lesson companies should learn from WAP, is that people will not go out of their way (or pay) for any "value added" crap. If i got games on my phone i'll play them (maybe). If not, i'm sure as hell not going to change my phone and pay monthly for something that makes GBA games look like doom 3.
While i don't see java as being attractive to consumers initially, it has a lot of things going for it: backing from sun, siemens and nokia, a broader scope, an established name in the programming community and will be possible to write non-professional software as far as i understand.
Re:What about J2ME (Score:2)
conspiracy theory (Score:3, Insightful)
Cellphone games: ruins productivity (Score:1)
With the latest advances in cell phones, where they are quickly reaching PDA level, I believe it is time to ban their use in schools. Games like snake cause extreme academic decline. Cell phones are often used to cheat in class. Everyone forgets to turn them off (and games like snake ENCOURAGE people to leave them on!). Most institutions have sufficiant amounts of pay phones that people do not need cell phones. It baffles me why they are allowed in schools in the first place. Silly games like snake are just another reason why they should not be allowed.
Even more destructive (Score:2)
No. It's too late. I have to inform you that academia has already declined beyond hope. And it has been due to an even more harmful, destructive habit by students in lecture halls over the past century. It's far more widespread than phone games, and the economies of the situation ensure that it always will be. The tools of destruction? A blank pad of paper, a pencil, and the desire to draw amusing and unrelated pictures while the professor is talking. Horrible thing, that. My informal observations indicate that the deadly paper/pencil/imagination combination has even greater penetration rates in the student market than mobile phones. The numbers approach 100% and show little sign of ever declining. Besides, I find the swooping and jerking motions of doodling to be far more offensive and distracting than the relatively restrained thumb movements of playing Snake.
Re:Cellphone games: ruins productivity (Score:2)
Cell phones aren't the cause of academic decline, it's apathy...
Oh btw... I carry my cell phone on me 24/7... Including class. Ya know what I do, I put it on silent... So I can play snake if I wish and if someone calls, my phone still won't make a peep.
Snake (Score:1)
expansion for cellphones? (Score:1)
3d gaming on cell-phones (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:3d gaming on cell-phones (Score:1)
It seems at some point they did decide that perhaps selling it on the platform they developed it on was a good idea. Maybe they no longer have the funding from the cellphone company? I don't know.
These guys were once part of the hardcore demo scene, too, as is probably obvious from the performance they eek out of that tiny machine.
BREW is just one platform among many (Score:2)
Last time I looked at the public info on BREW (from the downloadable API documentation), it didn't look like it had any world-beating features to enable gaming. From the article, you'd think that BREW had the inside track on becoming the game development platform of choice for mobile phones.
IMHO, BREW looks like an awfully lightweight, low-feature application-development toolkit, appropriate to use in a low-memory handset. There's nothing here that Nokia isn't offering with their Series 60 [nokia.com] platform, or that any of the other big players aren't doing with their own proprietary toolkits, I would expect.
The trick is that BREW has had a Java virtual machine ported to it, and game developers will develop to THAT, not to anything that is really BREW-specific, or even really enabled by BREW. But every handset vendor is doing the same thing with their own toolkit.
Verizon to Offer Java On Top of BREW (Score:2)
WirelessWeek: "Until recently, it seemed as if Verizon Wireless had turned up its nose at Java in favor of BREW. But the carrier has changed its attitude and recently confirmed it plans to offer Java-based applications, which it expects to hit the market in early 2003.
Ironically, the word comes as Verizon started giving its customers a sip of BREW, Qualcomm's binary runtime environment for wireless. The company began selling BREW applications to its 2G customers in San Diego in the first quarter as part of the first phase of a nationwide BREW deployment."
Read the rest here:
Verizon's Change of Heart [wirelessweek.com]
Dungeons and Dragons? (Score:1)
Nevermind that you could probably play it over the phone ANYWAY...
Lagging, because we were ahead (Score:3, Insightful)
Most likely because unlike many countries, the land-line phone system in the US does not suck. AT&T at it's worst was never the pain in the ass that NTT is/was.
Re:Lagging, because we were ahead (Score:2)
The best thing about the US phone system is the flat-rate for local phone calls, but that's also why cellular operators have to charge for incoming phone calls to mobile phones in the US (otherwise they'd lose money on every call). And this incoming call charging is a key reason why US residents don't give out their cell phone numbers, reducing the overall size of the cellular market and thus mobile penetration. This is the real reason for low mobile phone usage, it has very little to do with the quality of land lines, only their cost vs cell phones.
Japan is the only country where I saw ISDN data sockets on payphones everywhere, even tiny ski resorts, and voice quality was fine when I was there. If you really want to talk crap land line systems, try India - the GSM coverage is not too great but at least it works better than the very noisy land lines.
Re:Lagging, because we were ahead (Score:1)
But anyhow, you're looking at the PAYPHONES. They aren't going to have ISDN sockets EVERYWHERE, BTW, that's mainly in train stations and airports. (But this is in a country with thousands and thousands of train stations...)
I hear secondhand that to get a phone line IN YOUR HOUSE will cost about 800 dollars. 800. That's one hell of a disincentive to use land line phones right there, considering you can get started with your cell phone for as little as 1 yen. (Why they don't just say "free" I don't know...) Oh, and the land line phone is metered, too, so there goes that advantage, too.
It's not just the quality of the lines, it'S the pricing structure, and the coverage. In Japan, I know for a fact that all the advantages go to mobile phones...and at least some of those advantages go to them in most countries. In the US, it's much more split. The advantage isn't nearly so decisive.
Re:Lagging, because we were ahead (Score:2)
graspee
Re:Lagging, because we were ahead (Score:1)
Re:Lagging, because we were ahead (Score:2)
There are certainly countries where mobile usage has picked up due to poor fixed line infrastructure (in some of the Eastern European countries you can have a 6 month - a year wait for a land line), but the takeup in most places is nothing to do with this.
I hate phone calls (Score:1)
Who cares? (Score:1)
All of these games have dirty names. (Score:2)
Because the line "Wanna play with my Gladiator?" gets the same dirty look as "Wanna play with my Snake?"
Of course, then I'd whip it out... My phone, that is...
Let's all play CANCER (Score:2, Interesting)
Or, if you have one of those belt clip things, it's only your OVARIES/TESTES that are being cooked.
Sure, I'm an alamrist. And no studies have ever shown that non-ionizing radiation poses a health risk. Well, how would you even conduct such a study in today's world? Find me a control group. In the early days of radio, a five watt signal from New York could be heard in Miami. Now you need 100,000 watts just to walk over your nearest competitor.
Yeah, it's off-topic. Especially if you have enough of a fucking life to play real pnp dnd with real people instead of over your cell phone.
Vacations on Tape
Instant Happiness
Re:Let's all play CANCER (Score:1)
Umm... all of these games involve looking at the screen on the phone with the antenna directed away from you. I can't see how they would be played by holding the phone to ones ear :)
Perhaps you could champion the ergonomic issues of repetetive thumb motion on the keyboard...
pda is better (Score:1)
Wow (Score:1)
1) A phone thats like a PDA in that you can connect it to your PC and download 3rd party software onto it.
2) A phone thats like a PDA in that it _is_ a phone and a PDA in the same device.
3) Developing more games for phones.
hmmm (Score:1)
Operator control (Score:2)
BREW is a way to run native code on ARM-based phones. BREW applications have a huge amount of control over what the phone does. Therefore, access to this environment is strictly controlled - a BREW-supporting handset will not run an application unless it's signed by the operator. I believe BREW is primarily aimed at network operators, who currently have no way to add features and applications across all handsets on their network. Independent developers can make a pitch to the operators, but they cannot deliver any BREW apps without official blessing.
J2ME games already abound (Score:1)
If you check out the games [motorola.com] section of the iDEN Update Application Catalog [motorola.com] you can see that many, many games can be downloaded to your phone today.
Now, graphically, these are nice. They will become compelling when Nextel releases it's next phone, the i95cl [microjava.com] (press release here [motorola.com]) which we should expect within the next 1-2 months. The primary benefit of the new phone being not only the color screen, but the ability to store many more applications through memory improvements as well as processor speed improvements.
I have seen GPS enabled multiplayer games in the works, and many other cool things to come from the Nextel developer community. If you are a developer, please check out the Nextel Developer Program [nextel.com] and Motorola's iDEN Developer Program [motorola.com]. Both sites have free registration, resources, and special pricing on some equipment for developers. Both also have procedures to establish co-marketing relationships.
BREW is not all it's cracked up to be (Score:2)
Re:BREW is not all it's cracked up to be (Score:1)
If you enjoy suffering... (Score:2)
BREW will falter (Score:1)
While this sort of strategy gets the execs all excited because they get to stick their hand out for money at every step, these ploys fail because, in the end, there's nothing in it for the consumer. The developers are sick of it because they have to be certified against standards that even Qualcomm's own BREW demo apps don't pass, and they have to pay to recertify every time the standards are changed or their app fails. The consumer doesn't want it because this "walled garden" approach by the vendors has no value for them.
Good concept, bad business decisions.
Re:BREW will falter (Score:1)
Re:BREW will falter (Score:1)
You are blatantly wrong. BREW app downloads work very well on Verizon in San Diego. Application downloads are just as reliable as voice calls.
Top Snake Score? (Score:2)
I now have a samsung phone with 0 games, sigh -- my old samsung at least had othello, which I had over a 1000 wins in.
My mom's cricket phone has snake but it tends to get 'bogged down' and even on the fastest setting, at times it goes stupid slow and has issues responding. who woulda thunk it that a cell phone would run low on memmory
J2ME more likely. (Score:1)
BREW is currently a CDMA only technology. The majority of the world uses GSM thought. (Americans sometimes forget this since CDMA has a larger, but weakening, footprint in the US.) The majority of carriers and handset manufacturers are committed to J2ME in someway. Motorola has gone so far as to pledge that all of its phones will ship with J2ME by the end of this year. Even CDMA carrier Sprint PCS have decided to forego BREW for J2ME [sun.com] when they launch thier new service this August.
If your a developers, where would you put your efort first?
J2ME has its limtiations though. Then again so do these devices -- With a screen not much larger then an airmail stamp we're not even talking game boy here. The limitations of J2ME are currently being addressed with initatives such as Project Monty [sun.com] (a new high performance virtual machine), Mobile Game API [jcp.org] and the Mobile Media API [jcp.org].
<tim/>
---
http://tima.mplode.com/ [mplode.com]
Re:J2ME more likely. (Score:1)
I'd put my effort into BREW, where I can write my apps in ARM assembly and squeeze every last bit of performance out of the processor. That's really important for games. What I would not want is the overhead of a Java Virtual Machine.
Re:J2ME more likely. (Score:1)
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
Writing abstraction layers is easier in Java.
BREW is an abstraction layer.
Re:J2ME more likely. (Score:1)
Interfaces and devices capacities make "write once, run anywhere" unrealistic. However if you code yourapplication properly and abstract your logic from display some level of reusabability can be achieved. To what degree will depend and there hasn't been enough history to come up with an estimated range. From personal experience I estimated 60-80%, but this comes from applications that where not games. I would expect games to be lower.
What type of games are we talking about here that performance is such an overiding factor? Who wants to play Quake or Unreal on a mobile phone?
More things to do in your Car (Score:1)
Driving along and playing a racing game.... my head hurts just thinking about...
Which's BREW? (Score:1)
Essentially, BREW does much of the heavy lifting that wireless carriers prefer not to tackle. It is also an open standard that supports multiple languages including the Java platform -- which means game developers don't have to worry about writing multiple versions for different devices.
This statement is misleading. BREW is a "Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless" by Qualcomm [qualcomm.com]. It is just a friggin' API for phones with an ARM [arm.com] CPU! The only reason they claim Java - which does not ship by the way - is that is is conceivable to port and run Java under any environment. Putting a JVM on top of BREW is totally useless since the JVM does not need BREW whatsoever to run on an ARM - it's all marketing hype promoting the false associating with Write-Once Run-Anywhere. BREW competes with Java and locks you into the Qualcomm licensing machine. BREW is not open (or maybe it is, check for yourself here [qualcomm.com]), not cross-platform (ARM only), and does about as much for reducing the need for different software versions as Win32 - or any other proprietary "environment" - does for the desktop.
Re:Which's BREW? (Score:1)
Re:Which's BREW? (Score:1)
But BREW is just on the Qualcomm (ARM CPU) chips. To port BREW to any other chip/architecture means (1) the B(inary) in BREW isn't the same without ARM, and (2) it is *MORE* work to do the JVM since it must run on another CPU. The BREW APIs are just sugar on top of a native API for the phone. The JVM is *MORE* efficient running on the native API than through the BREW layer. It's just not that compelling to use BREW.
Re:Which's BREW? (Score:1)
What about other types of "mobile devices?" (Score:1)
Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score:1)