Don't believe me about kids and the future of wireless? Read on. Teens with Wads of Cash Flex Spending Muscle: Marketers Focus on This Huge Consumer Group

"Nearly a third of American teenagers carry cell phones. They eat out with their friends at least once a week. They buy the latest gadgets: CD burners, MP3 players, the $300 Microsoft X-Box. The average American teen spent more than $104 a week in 2001, according to the marketing research firm Teenage Research Unlimited -- up from $78 just four years ago. About two-thirds of that is money they can spend however they wish; the rest is for specific items, such as groceries.

Though the statistics include 19-year-olds, who are more likely to be on their own, they also include 12-year-olds, who are now considered teens. Marketers in the last 10 years have also begun focusing on the spending habits of "tweeners," ages 8 through 12, who have graduated from buying just bubble gum and Twinkies to purchasing CDs, video games, and clothes." [SF Gate, via BoingBoing]

When wireless rates level out to the point these kids can afford to play games on their cell phones, we'll see a huge jump in this area.

Be an iMode Mifune? By Justin Hall

"Released in Japan in January 2001, Samurai Romanesque offers a fantasy feudal Japan where thousands of gamers can play samurais and warlords by punching buttons on their mobile phones. Currently, Samurai Romanesque is available only in Japan, and only over NTT DoCoMo's popular I-Mode service.

Multiplayer role-playing games are famous for demanding untenable amounts of a user's time. Some folks have even hired people to play PC multiplayer games for them because they don't have time to maintain their reputation in their adopted online game world.

Mobile phones are the perfect device for stealing a few minutes here and there to play. So instead of devoting marathon sessions in front of your PC, you might be able to sustain your online life in short bursts if the game is designed to support it. The drawback is that each moment you can spend with the game is likely to cost you in terms of mobile phone airtime, making a devoted MMMORPG experience an expensive proposition. Although Samurai Romanesque addresses this problem with the Training applis, playing it is still not cheap. A basic subscription to Samurai Romanesque starts at 300 yen per month (US$ 2.25). According to Dwango's Kurokawa, an average Samurai Romanesque user will spend around 3000 yen (US$ 23) each month in mobile phone minutes; a heavy user could spend more than 9000 yen (US$ 70). Still, more than 100,000 players have paid the basic fees and the sometimes serious connection expenses.

More than 100,000 have found Samurai Romanesque a compelling experiment. But it's likely that, even in game-crazed Japan, the pricing model for connection time will have to change before large numbers of folks would participate extensively in a game like this." [at Wireless Gaming Review, via Camworld]

Wow, I didn't even know WGR existed, but now that I do I'll definitely be spending some time there. In fact, you'll find lots more interesting stuff on the site's main page, including a WAP game emulator. The screenshots of the SR game look almost as good as the games on my Sony Clie PDA. I believe this type of service will be the entry point into the American mobile market - kids playing multi-player games on their cell phones in brief bursts, so this is a smart strategy to make the games multi-level.

Of course, that's once prices reach a more reasonable level but as I've noted before, wireless carriers are targeting their ads at kids 10 years and younger because they're the future market for these services. If you don't have a young child, you may not have seen the newest Nintendo Gameboy for which you can buy a "multi-link" cable in order to play directly against other players. Take away that wire and you've got mobile gaming. A cell phone acting like a gaming console won't be that big of a leap for kids growing up with that type of technology.