Mobile gaming big boys I-Play have released the results of a study which revealed that only 5% of mobile users have ever downloaded a game
The independent survey examined the (cough) “behaviour barriers” and motives of 2,500 mobile users across the US, UK, Italy, Spain and Germany.
The study discovered that mobile phone newbies were pretty clueless about what their phones could do, with 33% of respondents unsure whether their handset could even play games.
A further 17.5% were uncertain how to download a game while the rest said that the downloading process itself was tedious.
Of all those polled, only a mere 5% of mobile users had ever downloaded and used a mobile game.
David Gosen, COO of I-play was ready with the positive spin, “The mobile games market is essentially only five percent penetrated. The good news is that we now know what’s limiting market growth – the industry must improve accessibility to mobile games and more importantly, educate consumers on how and where to obtain mobile games”.
Curiously, the survey revealed national differences, with 80% of smart Spaniards aware of the capabilities of their handsets compared with to just 60% of Germans.
Pricing was seen as a discouraging factor by 51% of the respondents, with 48 percent in favour of free trail versions and 30% saying that that they would go for a game if a friend recommended it.
Despite the aggressive advertising campaigns run to promote mobile gaming, the industry is still clearly in its infancy, although the potential for growth is seen as enormous, especially with the interest shown in emerging markets like India and China.
Gosen went on to explain that, “virgin downloaders” need more education about the process and more information about the game before they feel comfortable making that first purchase and this is critical. We know we have to de-risk that first download for the end user.
De-risk. Now there’s a good word for buzzword bingo.
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With casinos continuing to migrate their games to mobile, the report predicts growing popularity, although sports betting is expected to be a niche sector by comparison, despite bookmakers being keen to launch mobile applications for their customers to bet on the move. 
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China has opened its first officially licensed clinic for Internet addiction as State media reports growing cases of obsessed Internet gamers whose addiction has caused them to quit school, commit suicide or 
Sony’s PlayStation Portable is a media hub, but unfortunately, apart from games there isn’t really any content available for it (not forgetting unlucky UK citizens who can’t even officially buy one until September). 
Using an Apple Mac has many advantages and ripping DVDs is one of them. Look for an application MacTheRipper, it does exactly what is says on the tin, and takes the MPEG2 information from a DVD while removing region coding, macrovision and other DVD annoyances and stores the resulting files on the hard disk. 
Windows users don’t despair 
Games:
I don’t currently own an Xbox, but I have been quite a fan of Sony’s Playstation for a while: I had two of the original Playstations, PS1 and PS2 for various reasons. You might’ve thought that I would’ve been looking forward to the 
After the high profile launches of 
A few facts did emerge: the Revolution will come with 512MB of internal RAM, an IBM CPU, ATi GPU, an SD slot, built-in WiFi, wireless controllers and a selection of USB2 ports. 
Nintendo’s new machine will be their first console capable of playing standard storage DVDs, but they haven’t forgotten their old-school fans, with the Revolution able to accept Ye Olde Gamecube discs. 
Rumours persist that Nintendo may have a surprise up their sleeve for the end of the expo, but so far reaction to their presentation seems a little muted. 
Wooargh! The lights! The shapes…the colours….all that swirling…and moving…have I gone back in time to a chemically assisted squat rave? 
The mind-melding visual feasts are driven by beat detection or joypad control, letting users take interactive control of the camera, patterns and effect generators, to create their own psychedelic wig-outs. 
We’ve liked Jeff Minter’s stuff ever since the days when an Amiga 1200 (RIP) with 4meg of RAM was considered positively ostentatious. Even then his Llamatron was streets ahead of the competition, so it’s great it see the spliff-consuming, loveable hippy still producing such great work. 
And he’s still got his principles too, writing on his bulletin board: “And we haven’t sold our souls, or our IP, to Microsoft either. We’ve created for them an interactive visualiser for the Xbox360, and we’ll not do a visualiser for the rival consoles for this coming generation. But if someone were to ring me up tomorrow and say “Blimey Yak mate, that Neon’s a bit tasty, any chance of a bit of that for the next “not_a_console_visualiser_app” I could quite legitimately say “abso-smegging-lutely!” and we could be delivering working code in a few weeks. We can use it in games on *any* platform. The engine is small, efficient and portable.” 
Although Nintendo’s 
“We’re making the gorgeous Game Boy Micro for image-conscious folks who love video games, the ones who want the look of their system to be as cool as the games they play on it,” waffled George Harrison, who has one of the longest job descriptions we’ve seen for a while: Nintendo Of America’s Senior Vice President Of Marketing And Corporate Communications. 
Wrapping up the feature list, the Game Boy Micro comes with a built-in, rechargeable lithium-ion battery, supports standard headphones and comes with a removable face plate for that all-important customisation thang. 
Sony are currently collaborating with the world’s leading tools and middleware companies, to provide developers with extensive tools and libraries to make the best of the Cell processor and enable efficient software development.