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Why Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone may be the future of handheld games

Google’s Android is their new mobile phone platform. While it isn’t the gPhone many had wished for, it is an interesting shift for the cell phone industry. With most major carriers signed up to produce Android handsets, it was already a potentially interesting avenue for game development. Dell just made it more interesting.

Rumors are circulating that Dell will announce a new mobile device running on the Android platform. While Palm and Microsoft have fought it out between one another for the past few years, the last year alone ahs brought two major new competitors to the handheld market in Apple and now Google. What does this mean to gamers?

While Palm originally started out strictly focused on the business market, and even Microsoft focused almost exclusively on the same market, new competitors are moving into the consumer market. The iPhone and iPod Touch might be targeted to the business world, but they are also heavily aimed at the consumer market. The iPhone isn’t billed as a mobile Excel editor as much as it is a mobile music and video player. This entertainment focus would seem only logically to extend at some point to games. Already some games have appeared online for play on the iPhone, and with the imminent release of the iPhone SDK one can only expect more to follow. Google would seem to follow the same trend as they’re teaming with cell phone companies that can’t ignore the consumer market.

What both platforms need now is a third party company willing to take a risk. While traditionally cell phones have lagged behind handheld game systems because of the slower processor and lack of advanced graphics, this is no longer the case. Indeed, the biggest drawback would seem to be the controls, but if the Nintendo DS can find a way then surely someone can with the iPhone. Consider for a moment if Electronic Arts devoted a studio to iPhone development. Imagine a customized Madden Football, or Tiger Woods Golf? Many consumers would suddenly have a lot less incentive to carry around a DS or PSP, let alone purchase one in the first place. Sure, in the DS’s case you would miss out on all of Nintendo’s wonderful first party titles, but at least in the PSP’s case many third party titles are the reason to own the system. If ever there was a death knell for the PSP it is the introduction of such devices.

Or, maybe, it is simply a glance at the future. While Nintendo remains adamant their game consoles should just play games (and who can argue with their success?), Sony is already introducing Skype for the current PSP. Could a cell phone aspect be far off from the PSP2?

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