Phones in Japan Are So Cool

If you've been following our mobile games coverage from the Tokyo Game Show this year, you've probably noticed our reluctance to definitively state whether we're going to see many of these games in the States. There's a good reason for that, above and beyond the usual uncertainty that surrounds foreign games that could potentially be imported. Specifically, we in the United States are missing two very important ingredients. And without them, advanced mobile games like Monster Hunter i and Code Age Brawls simply can't work. The Japanese enjoy the world's coolest cellular phones, as well as the fastest and most data-heavy mobile network ever built.

We agree that all this sounds pretty outrageous. But if you've ever had a chance to visit Japan, you'll witness firsthand the vital role mobile technology plays in urban Japanese culture--especially in Tokyo. Many Westerners are astounded by the size of the city, as it can take several full hours to commute from one end of the metropolis to the other, whether by train, bus, or even car. The long commuting times, coupled with the strong social taboo against using a mobile phone to hold a conversation in public (there are actual signs posted on trains forbidding public blabbing), create the perfect environment for mobile entertainment consumption. And that's exactly where NTT DoCoMo has stepped in.

NTT DoCoMo is Japan's largest cellular carrier. It also happens to run the i-Mode mobile data service, which was founded in 1999 and immediately became the industry's de facto gold standard. i-Mode services a little more than 40 million people in Japan, who pay an additional monthly fee for access to its enormous content catalog. On top of that, NTT DoCoMo's FOMA network has supported broadband data-transfer rates since late 2001. By comparison, Verizon Wireless deployed similar technology at the beginning of 2005 when it launched its V Cast service.

Most of the mobile games we sampled at TGS were on advanced FOMA handsets, which are mostly manufactured by Fujitsu. Since these phones are specifically designed for use with i-Mode, they're not available in the US...and they wouldn't work here even if you were to import them. The technology gap between FOMA phones and our best handsets is narrowing, but it's still reasonable to say that FOMA technology is about a year ahead of anything we can buy at the moment here.

These phones have faster processors, larger and sharper QVGA screens, more features onboard, more storage memory, and much-more-flexible architecture. Most of the features on phones that are sold in the United States are blocked off from one another, so it's impossible to make camera games work, for example. FOMA handsets, on the other hand, have some pretty wicked games that make use of the onboard camera (like Real: Another Edition). It's even possible to buy games and other products by simply taking a picture of a 2D bar code. The phone will process the image and automatically link you to the attached download.