In response to a slashdot.org post regarding a CNN article mobile gaming and Qualcomm's BREW technology, I made this one of my own:
Many of these types of games and more where being demonstrated on JavaONE this year on J2ME devices so I would get too hung up on BREW. In fact I wouldn't even bother with that technology.
BREW is currently a CDMA only technology. The majority of the world uses GSM thought. (Americans sometimes forget this since CDMA has a larger, but weakening, footprint in the US.) The majority of carriers and handset manufacturers are committed to J2ME in someway. Motorola has gone so far as to pledge that all of its phones will ship with J2ME by the end of this year. Even CDMA carrier Sprint PCS have decided to forego BREW for J2ME [sun.com] when they launch thier new service this August.
If your a developers, where would you put your effort first?
J2ME has its limtiations though. Then again so do these devices -- With a screen not much larger then an airmail stamp we're not even talking game boy here. The limitations of J2ME are currently being addressed with initatives such as Project Monty [sun.com] (a new high performance virtual machine), Mobile Game API [jcp.org] and the Mobile Media API [jcp.org].
