Handheld video gaming about to go mobile

Technofile: For a long time wireless internet access has been the preserve of laptop-brandishing, road-warrior executives, but be warned the gamers are coming.

Handheld video gaming is often seen as the preserve of spotty teenagers, but in fact it's an activity which has spread from young men across the age spectrum and into the mainstream. Now the handhelds are moving out of the teenage bedrooms and going mobile. Both Sony and Nintendo have put wireless internet access into their latest machines, with a view to making gaming - generally seen as anti-social - a more social experience.Multiplayer gaming online is booming and is as addictive as the grand-daddys of multiplayer gaming, like Mah-Jong invented in China 3,000 years ago.

Transferred online, multiplayer gaming has just about everything: entertainment, socialising, and competition. On the internet it has two extra facets - it is no longer based on time zone or geography.

World of Warcraft, the most popular "massively-multiplayer online" (MMO) game, has five million subscribers worldwide and generates around $30 million (€24.88 million) a month in revenues for its publisher. At any one time about a million people are inside this virtual world.

So it's no wonder that the big guns of gaming want to get us virtually shooting each other. This week Nintendo announced the rollout of more than 600 wireless hotspots in retail stores across Ireland and the UK. The idea is to give owners of its DS device free access inside video games retail stores including GAME, Gamestation, HMV and Toys R Us. The partner in the scheme are BT Openzone and pan-European wireless provider the cloud, which will no doubt be gleaning revenues from Nintendo as part of the promotion.

Jim Merrick, Nintendo's European director of marketing describes the service succinctly: "Ease of use. No usernames. No passwords. No IP addresses. No URLs. No unintelligible technobabble. Just gaming."

Indeed, Nintendo even plans to market a Wi-Fi adapter for PC-based passing gamers. The scheme will also feature download stations, where Nintendo DS owners can try out playable game demos. To play you'll need a Wi-Fi enabled game inside the DS.

Already launched elsewhere, earlier this month Nintendo boasts that its wireless gaming service reached one million users globally, in less than four months. Obviously there is a marketing scheme at work here. The launch of Nintendo Wi-Fi coincides with the launch of Nintendo title Mario Kart DS which is designed for the Wi-Fi offering, among other titles.

And by getting gamers into the stores, Nintendo hopes they will be more likely to buy while they're there. It's not dissimilar to the idea that laptop-toting executives will pick the cafe with wireless over the cafe without; except gamers will get to play for free.

Meanwhile, Nintendo's great rival, Sony, has not been sleeping. Last week the Japanese electronics giant said it planned to add the ability to download audio podcasts and software support for a camera and global positioning systems unit and even voice over internet telephony, along with a cheaper version of the PSP in Europe.

It all adds up to a brave new world for mobile gaming, even as mobile phone firms like Sony Ericsson and Nokia start to announce moves into the hardcore gaming market.