Kicking off the afternoon session of Mobile Games Forum, panelists were discussing The rise of the tablets: Are tablets really cannibalising the market place?

Ander Jeppsson, head of gaming at RIM, is pretty popular, given that everyone in the audience has been given a free BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.

"PlayBook sales are really taking off and content downloads are overtaking those on our phones," he revealed. This is as a result of RIM cutting prices on the device, particularly in the US where it's $299.

Big screen, big consumption

Looking to the company's future, he said, "We're not going away as the media is writing. We've got 75 million subscribers. What's different is that we've not been a content driven platform before."

"We're building this platform from the ground up to enable gaming in social, interactive ways. BlackBerry has always been about sociability."

Another big company on the panel was EA, represented by its director of worldwide, OEMs, Pete Parmenter.

"Anything that widens the net of people playing games is good, but we're very keen on the quality of the experience," he said.

"Is the game fun? Can we port it easily from a technical point of, and then there's the business side. We're drawn to ecosystems where discovery is good, the customer experience is good and can you bill for it? Very few mobile platforms have all three of those right."

Beware the Unity

The situation isn't just positive, however. Rick Marazzani, head of content programming at Extent had a warning.

"Tablets - and tools such as Unity - make it easy for PC casual game developers to come over, so mobile developers will have to make something unique, otherwise they will be crowded out," he said.

Parmenter was more upbeat in terms the opportunities.

"When it comes to emerging markets, as in India with its $100 Android tablets, tablets will be interesting because there isn't a console market to cannibalise. We're looking all over the globe for opportunities," he said.

"Tablets are different to phones," pointed out Jeppsson, with respect to usage patterns. "Phones are personal but if there's a tablet on the work top, it doesn't matter if it's mine or my wife's."

Return of the operators

Marazzani reckoned that sort of behaviour will give operators an opportunity.

"I believe there will be carrier comeback and I believe billing will be a major part of that," he said.

"Operators want to own all your screens, which is why they are offering shared family data plans. I think wireless is going to replace a lot of our wired connections, and maybe your tablet will drive the content throughout your house and your TV is just a piece of dumb glass."

As for wider cross-platform issues, Parmenter pinned his hopes on HTML5.

"Sims Social is a big hit on Facebook, but it's not a portable game yet, for phones or tablets to continue the experience, and that's a technical issue," he said.

"I hope HTML5 will solve that problem, as well as enabling search for discoverability. But if it was that simple, we'd all be doing it. There are a lot of stars that need to align before it takes off."