According to USA Today, old guard PC developer id Software will more fully embrace the mobile gaming market in which it already has seen some measure of success. Anna Kang, founder of Orcs & Elves series and Doom RPG developer Fountainhead Entertainment, will head up id Mobile, the new division devoted entirely to cell phone games. Classic id franchises Wolfenstein and Quake are expected to make the jump to mobile. Doom RPG and the Orcs & Elves franchise were notoriously born out of a desire by id Software co-founder John Carmack to improve the state of mobile gaming as well as give him a chance to work on smaller, more personal projects that do not require large development teams. Fountainhead developed the games using initial technology developed by Carmack. Kang, previously an id employee, is Carmack's wife. She will apparently keep her Fountainhead post while serving as president of id Mobile. Fountainhead and id's mobile games have seen both critical and commercial success. The first Orcs & Elves game has been ported by Fountainhead to Nintendo DS as well; it is not clear whether id Mobile will produce titles on portable non-phone platforms such as the DS. "I was just really appalled at how bad [cell phone games] were," Carmack reportedly stated. "We're already making profit on two million units of games, but we are kind of holding out this hope there might be a breakout moment when the industry gets five to 10 times larger. "Everybody has a phone, and almost every phone is powerful enough to do good games on it."

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World of Warcraft and StarCraft developer Blizzard Entertainment is branching out into mobile development, according to a series of new listings on its job site. Three listings for mobile-related positions popped up last week--a mobile producer to oversee "the process of bringing Blizzard-IP-related functions into the mobile space," a lead software engineer to "lead a mobile development programming team," and a lead mobile UI designer to "help lead our efforts in the mobile space." Based off the phrasing and timing of the postings, Blizzard's plans for the mobile market appear in their infancy and are likely unrelated to the upcoming product announcement that has sent the internets into a furor of speculation. With the May 19th announcement less than two weeks away, rumors abound that said product may be anything from the long-awaited StarCraft sequel to a StarCraft-based MMO. Inquiries have been sent to Blizzard regarding mobile development, but a response has not been received as of press time. Update: "We do intend to announce a new product at the Worldwide Invitational next month in Korea, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and interest in getting an advance look at what that will be, but players will have to wait until May 19th to find out more," a Blizzard representative told Shacknews. The statement continues, "As far as our mobile plans, the job description for the Lead Mobile Software Engineer position reads, 'The ideal applicant will...be capable of leading a group of programmers in bringing Blizzard-IP-related functions to the mobile space.' That provides somewhat of an idea of what our scope will be in that space, but we aren't quite ready to divulge further details at this time."

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GameCloud talked with Pulse Interactive CEO Paul Trowe and gleaned a few details regarding the cell phone adaptation of Quake. A few details include that Quake Mobile will be the first OpenGL cellular game, it will be compatible with every mod created for the PC version, and it'll arrive in Korea first on a "game-oriented phone design."

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Kotaku has some of the first screenshots for the cell phone port of Quake. This was revealed just days ago, so read up on it here. Looking pretty good so far, but framerate is king!

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Another valuable id software series is finding its way onto the cell phone gaming scene: Quake! id software and Pulse Interactive announced the deal yesterday that will bring Quake to next-gen cell phones that feature dedicated 3D graphics hardware. In development by Bare Naked Productions, the port will be a "faithful conversion" of the original PC game. "Quake Mobile takes all of the action, game play, and atmosphere of the groundbreaking original and puts it right in the palm of your hands," says id CEO Todd Hollenshead. Pulse Interactive president Paul Trowe commented: "Forget miniature golf and puzzle games, Quake is going to take mobile gaming to a whole new level. [The game] will not only satisfy hardcore players, but also create a whole new generation of fans around the world." EuroGamer reports that this port will be an embedded program on a new handset launching in July.

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It was always believed that if you wanted 3D gaming on the go, you were out of luck. However, the last few years have seen great strides in mobile graphics. These days you can buy a solution that will run DOOM3 better than your rig at home, as evidenced by this review of the Dell XPS Inspirion XPS Gen 2, which sports a GeForce Go 6800 Ultra. Dell going with nVidia was a big blow to ATI, as they had been using their chips for the past few years. ATI now hopes to rectify this by soon announcing the M28PRO, their latest mobile processor. It one-ups the nVidia solution by offering sixteen pipelines as opposed to twelve on the Go 6800 and the ATI card will be "faster with FSAA and Anisotropic filtering on especially at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 resolutions." The official announcement should be coming in less than two weeks with Alienware being the first vendor to have systems with the new card shortly thereafter.

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CNN is reporting about a new deal for Sega in Japan where they are going to be working together with Japan's top cell phone operator, DoCoMo. The service they'll be providing allows cell phones and arcade machines to be linked to consoles and personal computers through the cell phone. This service will probably be provided for the Playstation 2, and in Japan at first of course.

The decision is aimed at enhancing the number of visitors at our game arcades and i-mode users through providing a new entertainment structure using the latest network technology," the Sega spokesman said.

Anyone have any idea what kind of games you could possible play on a cell phone, against someone with a real console. Or the amount of lag between an arcade center and a console user at home.

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And as we've mentioned not to long ago, NVidia has its mobile chip ready. The product will be launching at the upcoming Comdex. ATI pretty much dominates the mobile market now.

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SamSung just announced this cool looking cellphone / tv combo portable deal. It's cool ok damn it. Speaking of portable stuff, here's a ZDNet article talkoing about joining the forces of the mobile internet.

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