Mobile Mavens

The PG.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens make their predictions for E3 and WWDC

Double trouble, or twice the fun?

The PG.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens make their predictions for E3 and WWDC

With two big gaming conferences storming into view, this week we asked the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Mavens;

What announcements are you looking forward to from E3 and WWDC, or are these shows irrelevant to you?

Hardware was on the agenda, but interestingly, not all of it new, and not all of it mobile.

E3: Winning with Wii 2 and Windows Phone

First off the blocks, Kevin Dent from Tiswaz was excited about the Wii 2, and couldn't help telling everyone how he was going to get a preview ahead of E3.

On the other hand, Wen Chen of Coconut Island, having been stunned by the 3DS but shocked at its lack of a killer app, was skeptical of the new Nintendo console.

"I really wonder," he said, "which features that can compete against Xbox 360 or PS3 will be added to Wii 2 besides faster CPU and better GPU."

Kevin was also excited by the move to downloadable content. "I think this E3 will spawn a revolution," he added.

Kevin Dent was also hugely enthused about Microsoft's work on Windows Phone, adding "... they have stunned me with the latest update...they are actually delivering value to the end user. However I reserve the right to 'believe it when I see it'."

He pointed out that, while satisfying users was great, Micriosoft now needs to deliver value to developers, as there's no native support for either UDK or Unity in WP7.

WWDC: Fear of fragmentation

Mills(tm), as usual, was gleeful in his lack of industry awareness. "Nice, I never even heard of E3," he said. 

However, for WWDC he hoped that Apple could improve the 'discoverability' of quality games and remove the dross, as well as tightening the approval guidelines to take "quality, purity and innovation into consideration... the tidal wave of poorness must be scooped from the flooding pool."

Finally, he wanted a more personal store experience, with friend-based recommendations, reviews from external websites and a "visible social stream of tweets populating my App Store experience."

Leo Tan of Capcom agreed. "I sincerely hope that WWDC has Apple showing a marked improvement to Game Center, not in the least correcting its spelling," he said. 

Wen Chen was interested in any news about iPhone 5, whether MobileMe is going free, and what the key new feature of the new iOS version will be.

Also in Wen and Mills(tm) camp was David MacQueen of Strategy.

However, he also expected cross platform announcements - including iOS on Apple TV - and posited new app-integrated features for iOS 5.

Notably, he thought that, if the rumours of a different screen size for the new iPhone 5 were true, this "could signal the start of some significant fragmentation on iPhone."

Christopher Kassulke of HandyGames even thought that we might see an iPhone Mini announced.

Gagging for games?

Wen Chen was looking forward to Journey, the game from Jenova Chen (no relation) who produced Flow and Flower. "His games give us kind of an ambient feeling." 


No-one else specified particular games that they were looking forward to, but Christopher Kassulke was strong-minded about what he wasn't looking forward to.

"I am bored by too many sequels and look alike pc and console titles – I am awaiting fresh ideas, new concepts for gaming not only for the hardware (Wii 2) but also from the software side," he said.

"I think the mobile industry is showing exactly that those fresh ideas are paying off. Own strong IPs are the key…"

Indeed, he stated that he was looking forward more to GamesCom in Cologne, as "we can see what the consumers are expecting and what topics will be really hot in the future."


A backroom operator, Dan works behind the scenes to source and proof content for PG.biz; if you notice Dan's work, then something has
gone wrong. Dan's background is in writing about politics, tech and the games industry, and he's addicted to social networking and board
games. His favourite mobile games are Carcassone, Neuroshima Hex and Catan
(though he laments its lack of online multiplayer).