Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 154

One of the most satisfying elements of an Alpha Male’s life is to sit in front of Sky TV on a Saturday afternoon and watch the football results come in. Naturally, this involves going to the pub at the same time and talking absolute b*ll*cks with lower omega males, who might know who won the FA Cup in 1958, but would never,ever be invited around for dinner.

This Saturday sees the start of the Premiership season and a steady stream of men making their way to the aforesaid hostelries. But wait, what’s this? Damn, it’s Vodafone’s mobile 3G service where subscribers can watch Sky’s Gillette Soccer Saturday between 3pm and 5.30pm and then watch video highlights of every goal.

Naturally, this is a great content idea and Soccer Saturday Mobile does a nice job of backing up its goals package with a cultural phenomenon, but now means a lot of men will be forced to go shopping with their wives on a Saturday afternoon. Expect changing rooms to be filled with men with their heads down over their handsets trying to convince their partners that Cowdenbeath’s three-goal comeback at East Stirling is really quite extraordinary.

What is also quite extraordinary is the current Ashes cricket season where two evenly matched teams are serving up a classic sporting contest. If only one of the operators could offer an Ashes video service where that offered ball-by-ball service. Instead, delegates to this week’s Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, were forced to wait for host Clive Tyldesey’s updates between sessions.

Ah, the sessions. I was part of a mobile games panel that included Tim Harrison of Vodafone, Kamar Shah of Nokia, Tony Pearce of Player X and Barry O’Neill of Upstart Games.

Let’s just say later that night many, many people described the panel as one of the weirdest sessions they’d every witnessed, but kept shaking our hands and laughing. Which was nice, but let's just say the session wasn't half as weird as the night before when the five of us went out together. Now that's what I call Alpha Males.