CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom-Research and advisory firm Analysys predicted that downloadable wireless games will become so popular in Western Europe that in just three years they will replace ring tones as the area’s most popular wireless entertainment service.
The firm said that mobile games offer the greatest prospects in the short term among all entertainment applications, and that the gaming market will increase more than tenfold, from $255 million this year to over $3 billion in 2005.
“Ring tones, logos and other personalization services have formed the backbone of mobile content and entertainment services to date, with an estimated market value of $1.2 billion across Western Europe in 2002,” said the firm’s principal analyst Katrina Bond, author of the report. “But growth in the personalization market is slowing rapidly, while downloadable games, a logical extension of personalization services, are just taking off.”
