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Mobile games, sure: what about phone battery life, though?

The Congress in Cannes this week is not short of people proclaiming that they have "the best games on phones" but the ones to watch, are the few who dare mention the "b" word - battery.

STAND F30, Hall 2 - Alphamosaic, claiming that mobile gaming "is poised to take off in Europe in a major way, much as it has done in the Far East," is working at the silicon level. It is offering its VideoCore processor technology which, it says, gives the lowest power games for phones.

Naturally, it also claims that these are the highest quality games. Of course, the quality of a game is unrelated to the platform it runs on; a good game is a good game, whether on a black and white "pong" screen or on a gamer's P4 3.5 GHz PC. But the game has to keep running for long enough to get the player addicted.

Alphamosaic Ltd is a fabless semiconductor company based in Cambridge, UK. "Mobile phone users will be able to enjoy a feature rich gaming experience brought to them at previously unattainable levels of quality and still preserve battery life," is the press summary published by the company.

On its stand (Hall 2, F30), Alphamosaic is demonstrating 3D pool, Darxide, Project End, ZooCube, and more.

"As of now, consumers will be able to enjoy console quality on their mobile devices over and over again. Colours, textures, lighting and shading all contribute to an unparalleled gaming experience," said the release.

But it's not just silicon, says Alphamosaic. "These unique hardware developments have been backed up with equally exciting software developments. Alphamosaic has written dedicated middleware to allow the architecture to seamlessly integrate with mobile phones." This, it says, "gives the games development community the opportunity to create or port games for any VideoCore enabled handset."

Official quote from Robert Swann, Vice President of Marketing at Alphamosaic: "The mobile games market is accelerating at unprecedented speed. In the Far East, anticipated revenues for 2004 are expected to reach $250 million. Europe will soon follow. Alphamosaic is already in partnership with a number of leading games developers and distributors. As games become more important, so too do the issues of battery life and quality – and Alphamosaic is ideally positioned to support this."

Alphamosaic recently announced a joint collaboration with Samsung, to develop next generation phones. To read more about this, and other news items, please see the Alphamosaic news home page.