Feature

Will Antix Labs' promise of portability result in mobile gaming's MP3 format?

And now for the science bit...

Will Antix Labs' promise of portability result in mobile gaming's MP3 format?
There was a bit of the blip on the blogosphere last month, when the latest endeavour from mobile entrepreneur Francis Charig (pictured) hit the wires.

Following his adventures at hardcore tech outfit Tao Group, the larger-than-life character was back with Antix Labs, a company which – as you might expect with Charig at the helm – is out to revolutionise mobile technology. Or more specifically in this case, revolutionise mobile gaming.

Still, there was general confusion about what Antix was actually doing. Some thought it would enable developers to port PC games to mobile, while others suggested it would create a level playing field between high-end and entry level phones. There's some truth in both, but people also seemed to get the wrong end of the stick. And equally, while more complex to explain, the opportunity potentially offered by Antix is significant.

"We're out to make games as portable as music," says Charig, underlining his credentials as someone not afraid of the big statement.

Unpicking this statement, you begin to get a sense of what he's on about. It's all about how mobile games should be more standardised, both in terms of the engines that run them as well as ability of different devices to run games. Continuing the music theme then, we could paraphrase that Antix Labs' goal is to become the MP3 format of gaming – i.e. allowing developers to create one version of a game that can run on any phone.

So far, so ambitious.

The technology

Delving down in the guts of offering, this involves two pieces of technology. Most obvious is a player (perhaps better explained as a game client), which is compliant with the OpenKODE cross-platform media stack that's overseen by the Khronos Group. Essentially, this just means it's easy for developers to use Antix technology as the client uses industry standards.

This is combined with what Charig calls the portability layer, which ensures games made using Antix's technology are transferable between different types of phones (an approach known as a unified binary). Clearly games that require 3D hardware acceleration aren't going to work on a £20 pay-as-you device, though, so Antix's technology has more of bottom-up than a top-down approach.

Together, these two pieces act as a bridge between mobile game developers and mobile game players.

The software player itself will be embedded into millions of phones – typically these will be the entry level devices that use proprietary operating systems – but it can also be downloaded onto open devices such as those running Symbian or Windows Mobile. Using Antix's tools, developers will need to add support for the player into their game engine and toolchain. The benefit is that every phone running the Antix Labs' player will then run its games (within the aforementioned minimum hardware specs).

No more incompatibility

Now, any developers reading will probably be moaning at this stage because they'll assume that by trying to solve the problem of incompatibility between phones (aka the fragmentation issue), Antix has caused further fragmentation by adding another standard. The reason Charig says this isn't the case is because of the deals he's already set up with handset manufacturers.

"We'll ship millions of units this year with our technology embedded, we will see large-scale volumes in 2009 and enormous volumes in 2010," he says. "This isn't going to be five or ten million handsets per year. I'm confident it will be hundreds of millions of units a year."

With so many Antix-ready phones soon-to-be available – and the player can also be used in set-top boxes, PCs and other consumer electronics – Charig says game publishers will definitely support the technology because it will enable them to make more money, while investing less in game development.

Equally important, because the technology is based on native code (i.e. C++), this should mean the graphics and gameplay of the games will be better than the commonly used Java standard, while providing a higher level of portability which has been the main factor for Java's success.

"I think the timing is very good," Charig continues. "What Nokia is doing with N-Gage is making people aware of the potential of games in this market. It's a similar thing with the success of BREW. Java has been successful in the mobile market, but mobile is no longer an island. It's part of a continent and it's got to integrate with a pervasive global market including other devices."

Games for all

One feature in this regard is the way the technology will link mobile gaming into the PC and the web, which is great for the distribution and selling of casual games. Examples will include the ability to play a PC version of an Antix game, then buy it online and have a version sent directly to your phone. Other ways Charig says the discovery of mobile games will be improved will be the way the technology will allow viral demos to be beamed between phones without worrying about different operators and operating systems.

Of course, Charig isn't the first person to have come up with this sort of idea. Amongst others, French company In-Fusio offered something similar with its ExEn technology, while Synergenix had its Mophun game engine. Both of these failed in the big scheme because the technology wasn't embedded in enough phones to get publishers interested.

However, if Antix does ship in the promised hundreds of millions of phones, especially entry-level phones that haven't offered consumers a good quality gaming experience before, Charig should be onto a winner. And as the company's business model relies on charging a licensing fee for all games released on the platform – all content will be certified and signed, just like Qualcomm's BREW technology – his investors obviously assume that's going to be the case.

Antix Labs' official unveiling will happen at the World Mobile Congress show. You can build up your anticipation by following the countdown on the company's website.
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.