Mobile Game Tunes Need Some Oomph

The restricted size of mobile games files and the relatively poor audio quality on handsets means that the sound of mobile games has been neglected, but that will soon change according to this ZDNet Asia article in Business Week. “The received wisdom until recently has been that mobile games are played in public. And that means, “the first thing people do is turn the sound off,” said [Stuart Dredge, a blogger for mobile gaming site, Pocket Gamer]. “But the rise of music phones like Sony Ericsson’s Walkman series means that more people are carrying headphones with their handset.” At the moment the sound is from MIDI files, which are small and simple, but as files get bigger and handset capabilities improve MP3-style audio files will be used — probably even licensed music. Of course, mobile games are played for a much shorter time than console or computer games so they don’t need as much sound…and at some point people are going to be looking to hear their music saved on the handset while they’re playing, which I’m pretty sure is available in some handsets already.

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