Business Week

Wireless Gaming: Finally No Fantasy


As handset hardware and networks improve, carriers see cell-phone fun as the Next Big Thing for firing up subscribers' spending. Ever since the idea occurred to some programming whiz, wireless online gaming has looked like one of those goofy Internet fantasies that was just too far ahead of its time. For years, cell-phone owners had to satisfy themselves with Snake, an amoebic version of the two decade-old Pac-Man electronic game, in which a line devours tiny dots on a phone's screen. In fact, Snake remained state-of-the-art even after Nextel (NXTL ), which now has 10 million subscribers, introduced the first Java-based phones nearly two years ago.