The potential of serious games on mobile devices - is there anything real yet?

[Kevin Corti]

We have an existing client that is interested in deploying serious games on mobile devices (PDA's specifically). We're seeking to go back to them with appropriate and realisable suggestions but we're not finidng anything liek that out there already. Most examples we have found fall into 'blue skies research (no immeadiate applications in business)', 'tourism', 'quiz/edutainment' or 'arcade/casual games' buckets.

It seems that despite the headlines we all get, that there is actually nothing going on with PDA type devices that is genuinely useful for businesses to use as part of the learnign & development plans. Or am I wrong?

Kevin Corti
CEO, PIXELearning (serious games)
[e-mail]
www.pixelearning.com
http://theevilnumber27.wordpress.com

[AC]

I'm thinking the PDA platform is dead (except for niche applications e.g. stock taking).

Smart phones and netbook computers have moved into the price point of the PDA and have much greater functionality.

http://www.saverstore.com/productinfo/Product.aspx?product_id=20026...

[AC]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/17/the-iphone-could-be-the-ultima...

http://seriousgamesblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/ipod-touch-hot-accesso...

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/15/what-apple-could-learn-from-palm...

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/08/review-preschool-adventur...

http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/01/android-netbooks-on-their-way-lik...

http://seriousgamesblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/will-apple-finally-lau...

[Denki Lajeunesse]

The potential of the iPhone is immense. It has pretty decent 3d capabilities. The touchscreen makes for a very personal, engaging level of interaction.

I have been using some language training software and the way flashcards, audio, video, validation (through click-quizzes in this case, but there is a mic on this thing so you could go for audio input I guess ;)) all comes together makes a convincing case for the device in my opinion.

Plus it's web-aware so you can integrate all sorts of online content for further information in your application. You could even build location-aware applications.

The PDA is dead, long live the ...PDA-smartphone-zombie-hybrid ;).

[AC]

'iTunes university' better than the real thing

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16624-itunes-university-bette...