A new era for mobile gaming began with the July 10 opening of the iPhone App store, an online catalog of programs for the new 3G iPhone from Apple. Consumers are able to browse, download, and install games onto their phones directly, without having to transfer them from a computer — and without paying big airtime fees to operators. And thanks to the iPhone’s slick hardware, gamers will benefit from high-definition graphics, tilt control, and a touchscreen interface.

“It will completely change consumers’ perceptions of playing on the go,” says Michel Guillemot, chief executive and co-founder of Paris-based Gameloft, which released six iPhone games in the App store July 10.

Thanks to such advances, the market for mobile games is expected to reach $3.7 billion annually in 2012, up from $2.3 billion in 2007, according to Screen Digest, a London-based consultancy. Analysts say no company is in a better position to benefit from that growth than

Gameloft, one of the world’s top developers of downloadable games for mobile phones.

Lofty Download Numbers

The Paris company sells an average of three games every second all by the world. Its titles are available for 1,200 different handsets, and it has 50 games out of a portfolio of 250 that have sold more than 1 million copies each. Three blockbusters, including Block Breaker Deluxe, have sold more than 10 million units. In addition to the new iPhone games, Gameloft will launch later that month its sixth new title for the N-Gage mobile-games service from Nokia. And it is in talks to develop games for the new Android mobile operating system spearheaded by Google.

Gameloft overtook EA Mobile, a division of Electronics Arts in the fourth quarter of 2007, to become No. 1 globally, says brokerage Natixis Securities. Natixis figures Gameloft still looks the best positioned to outpace the…

Orginal post by Mike

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