With the arrival of some pretty polished games for the iPhone (heck, you can play Super Monkey Ball), and more for Google's Android platform surely on the way, will smart phones take over the portable gaming market? Or are phones destined to remain second-class gaming systems as many of these comments suggest? The old Java Mobile Edition was definitely more limited and thus probably helped keep expectations low for a while. But with version 3 on the way, even Java ME may see better times ahead. And how will Microsoft fare in all this?
Going the other direction -- from game system to multifunction device -- has been a challenge. Nintendo's DS Browser product was pulled from the shelves due to lackluster performance and thus sales. I think the smart money is on the phones moving further faster.
One concern for those of us who are developers is which platform to choose. I hope we see good tools and techniques for porting applications. You can always cover iPhone with Flash, but that of course misses the point. At least Android is based on the Java language. I just hope Google and Sun play nice.
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