I'd rather see this on the PSP

it started with playing mary had a little lamb with the tones of the phone and went downhill from there

not 4 nothing but I do alot of gaming on my smartphone - its of the illegal 8 bit variety, but at least the guy across the train thinks I'm checking my email

LAWSUIT!

Google OS for the win Crecente? How about Linux?

Can't be worse then window's mobile.

I always thought it was the 1.5-inch screen on most phones that was holding it back.

Where did they get the name Zeemote? I don't see any connection to the world of cell pho-wait I get it... they're French!
I don't see how this can be useful. I don't say to my self on a daily basis, "I love playing games on my 2 inch cell phone screen, but darn it, I wish I could play farther away."

Nah.

What we need is a Nintedo DS that has a mobile phone built in! <3

I thought all cellphones played java ? So the OS would have Nothing to do with it right?

I have to disagree with you, Crecente. While you're right that market fragmentation is a big problem, I think that shitty interface design plays in equally. I've yet to use a cell phone that I'd seriously consider gaming on for extended periods. The interfaces just suck for it.

I think the general problem with cell-phone gaming in the states is that

1)The cell phones and services available to Americans are balls-on-the-wall horrible. Seriously, they just suck ass. The technology is old, slow, and generally crap.

2) Americans spend far less time on their cellphones than the Japanese. This because by ratio more Americans own cars than the Japanese do. Ride on any train or bus in any city in Japan and I gaurantee you that 90% of the people around you will be on their phones, either playing a game, text chatting or watching television or some other form of media. Japan has an established market that are bored off their ass for an uncomfortably large portion of the time and so the demand for cell games is high. America (specifically) doesn't suffer from this problem, because more people drive in the States than in Japan.

Sound crazy? It should, because it is.

Who is going to look like an idiot and actually use that thing to play shitty games on a phone.

I think the bigger problem with mobile gaming is that it's all totally uninspired. (Like many 3rd party efforts on the Wii are now.) Cell phones themselves originally were just a phone. But over the years, they've become this conglomerate of features and time-wasters, that trying to make it into a viable gaming platform is like adding a toaster to your DVD player. You'd be all 'Cool, it can do that too!' and then entirely ignore the feature.

i figured out the solution to the cell phone gaming and the suckage it is:

F-OFF!

handheld gaming was perfected with the gameboy. we need to stop letting cell phone companies convince us that our cell phone should do everything. you don't need to game on your cell phone, while texting a friend, and with another friend on speaker phone all the while listening to avril lavigne.

i'm cool with e-mail on my phone, but for god's sakes...stop trying to sell me an ipod, ds, and laptop in a cell phones' case. it just means i'll be disappointed with the main reason i got the damn phone; making calls. focus on one thing and do it well. it's why i'll spend the extra dough on a ds, ipod and a nice cell phone. they do one thing well, not three or 5 things shitty.

Mobile phones don't have the battery life or user interface when compared to dedicated Handhelds also the screen size is shit and they are just trying to cram too many things into the phone.

this Zeemote Idea is rubbish

@PGGB:
a-men to that!!

i know the solution to the cell phone gaming problem...:

F-OFF!

i'm tired of cell phone companies trying to convince me that i need to do 5 different f-ing things with my phone. can't i just make a call and be done with it.

if i want to listen to music, i grab my ipod. it organizes the music properly, isn't a pain to put music on and is simple to use.

if i want to take a photo i use a digital camera. holds more pictures, takes WAY better snaps and doesn't make my phone run slower.

if i want to play games on the bus i grab my ds. it doesn't suck.

make a phone that makes good calls and (i guess my only slip) sends e-mail. leave that other useless shit off and focus on making a GOOD phone. christ.

@PGGB: crap, my post showed up late, ignore the second (and now third) comment.

the internets hate me:(.

I actually like this idea. Seriously, playing with the keypad on a cell phone sucks, a num chuck would greatly improve control ability and its blue tooth, so you don't actually have to have it connected to the phone. Of course, cell phone games are way to basic to ever really take advantage of it, which is what i find is the problem with games on mobiles. They just aren't as good as the games you will find on a DS or PSP. When cell phone games look and feel the same as a DS or PSP then i make actually be interested, until then i will call anyone crazy if i see them playing crappy games on a cell phone.

This is just the beginning friends. I can almost guarantee you that all the new consoles will get Wii-mote / Nunchuck controllers. Nintendo has broken new ground but has also opened up copy cats AND people to improve on it. Imagine a 360 with the Wii controller and excellent graphics. That won't be far away I bet...

What the holy hell is this supposed to be? Mobile phone games usually suck. And whatever happened to just having a cell phone be just a phone. We don't need all this BS added to them each year.

Are people really going to carry this thing around just to play games on their cellphone? No.

Most mobile phone games runs on Java middleware. And all competing consoles also run on different OS.

Anyway some of the best portable games I have played were developed for WinMob platform. Good mobile games can exist if there are talented developers willing to code them.

dumb. phone games are lame.

"I think the real problem is the lack of a single operating system"

And the screen of the size of my thumb and the lack of games and the lack of cartdriges instead of a 50kbytes game designed for a 30mhz processor with midi like sounds.

All I want to know is when is Nintendo going to sue this company's ass for copyright infringement?

And since I'm talking about it... when the hell is Nintendo gonna sue the ass off that Chinese company that's behind that Vii monstrosity?!?!

"Personally, I don't think it's the lack of controls that is keeping mobile gaming from realize the potential that mobile game developers are always harping endlessly about."

I beg to disagree. Yeah the lack of a standardized OS is a serious set-back, but what I find the most putrescent aspect of cell-phone gaming is first and foremost the hardware. The A/V capabilities of 99% of cell phones is ridiculously unacceptable and yest suck the battery juice to nothing in no time flat, the controls are frustrating and confusing and impossible to properly control given the spacial constraints (both in terms of engineering and ergonomics). The joystick on the back of my digital camera is 100x more responsive and enjoyable to use than any cell phone control I've ever owned... and that's sad. N-gage was not a good start. Don't know why they just didn't license the GBA and slapped on a Nokia phone. Guess they wanted to completely waste money rather than give some to a partner. Maybe Nintendo wasn't interested. Anyway, Skype's coming to the PSP so the issue as to the best gaming system on which to make a phone call should be moot.

Why is it still called a nunchuk when it's wireless?

HMMM??!

The big question I have is will this knock-off work with the Vii?

This is a bad bad idea.

Why?

Because I can already see forums bursting with
"Zeemote broke my cell phone screen!!! omgz"

I disagree. I think the main thing is control.

A phone running Magical OS 5000 that makes you toast in the morning is still a phone, with horrible legacy ok key/directional pad design. Its really the biggest hurdle for a natural gaming interface, for traditional and retro games. There's a few games trying to simplify controls (like EA's AirHockey), but they're clearly trying to solve a problem.

This type of thing, however, I think is silly. You're forcing someone to not only buy something extra to game, but also forcing them to carry it around with them in addition to their convenient cell phone. Its kind of putting the cart (great unique control) before the horse (compelling, must-play gaming experiences)

@:ATHEIST JEW
I think you are right on!
This has much to do with the cultural aspect between Asia and the US. But don`t forget Europe in this to. I can really only speak for my own country, Norway. Were we are to rich for our own good, wich is ok sometimes (The Welfare State), but then again we can afford to buy a lot of crap. They tried for a year ago to push games on the phones, but nah, well, I see potensial. But it`s not there yet. I even *ashamed* got Rainbow6:vegas for my Sonyericsson, and it sucks just as much as as that first flash in your mind that went throuh now as you read this---

On a more serious note; you mention n-Gage. isn`t that Pandoras box?

(I have been reading here(Kotaku) for a year, sorry I havn`t said hi...)

@Baff: Amen.

zeemote? really? they couldn't comeup with something better?

Hey didnt we have a video of this thing in action WAAAAAAAAAAY back? Like with the 2 guys sitting on a couch staring at a tiny mobile phone screen playing some sort of weird puzzle game?

Making games for cell phones is like trying to put the coconut in the lime, you can't do it without cutting it up into a small little fragment of what it's supposed to be. Or, more acurately, viewing it as one.

The OS thing is true. Maybe it's just all the Nokia dev newsletters I get, but there's something to be said for developing for their Series 60 phones...

...the fact that it's a series with pretty much interoperable apps!

Then again, we'd still have to overcome the hurdle that any kind of little basic service is held for ransom here, and you have to pay for everything from a one-word text message, to ringtones, to even simply putting wallpaper on your phone! For now there are still phones that can do that through PC link cables that are conspicuously never advertised, sometimes only available on the grey market, and often sell for 10x what they're worth, but mostly it's just better to avoid the whole fiasco and just use them as phones here.

...and looking at NTT DoCoMo, that makes me very sad.

I think this is ripping something off... I just can't put my finger on it...

This, friends, is how you spell patent infringement.

I like my phone, it browses the web, it features an adequate mp3 player, and it has good call quality, but I'll be damned if I want to actually play any games on it for more than 10 minutes. The controls are only a drop in the barrel of reasons why I haven't played past the first dungeon in that Zelda 1 remake I have on my phone (which is really quite good for a cell phone game, and free at that). Small screen, general sluggishness, and minimal or no sound all contribute, along with the overall lacking quality of mobile games. Give me a proper d-pad and a 3" screen at minimum, and we'll talk, otherwise this just makes it easier to experience crap that I could live without.

if you walked around with that in england you'd get the crap beaten out of you

@tigrshark:
Still stuck in the 90's over there?