Mobile gaming has not been around as long as other gaming platforms due to the actual mobility of the systems. The hardware needs to be very small and compact to be able to use and this was a pain to achieve back in the day, however modern technology allows for mobile gaming to be a lot more accessible and possible due to the sizes of hardware nowadays.
Towards the end of the 20th century mobile phones began to modernize. With the introduction of the “candy bar” cell phone mobile phones’ capabilities significantly improved. With these technological advances mobile phone games were becoming increasingly sophisticated. Older cell phone games were not as expansive or popular as games for consoles since the hardware for the early mobile phone was not suited for high-color screening or sounds beyond differently pitched beeps. These games were also usually animated with shaded squares (e.g. Snake) due to their limited graphical quality. Unlike today’s cell phone games, which usually have to be purchased, these games came pre-installed and could not be copied or removed
In the early 2000s, mobile games gained popularity in Japan’s mobile phone culture, years before the United States or Europe. By 2003, a wide variety of mobile games were available on Japanese phones, ranging from puzzle games and virtual pet titles that utilized camera phone and fingerprint scanner technologies to 3D games with exceptionally high quality graphics. Older arcade-style games became particularly popular on mobile phones, which were an ideal platform for arcade-style games designed for shorter play sessions.
The launch of the Apple App Store in 2008 radically changed the market. First of all, it widened consumers’ opportunities to choose 
where to download apps. The Apple users, however, can only use the Apple App Store, since Apple forbids the distribution of apps via any other distribution channel. Secondly, mobile developers can upload applications directly to the App Store without the typically lengthy negotiations with publishers and operators, which increased their revenue share and made mobile game development more profitable. Thirdly, the tight integration of the App Store with the device itself led many consumers to try out apps, and the games market received a considerable boost.
Eventually Google joined the race for mobile gaming; by releasing their Android software with it’s own store and apps. This increased the popularity of phones generally, but also mobile gaming too.
Conclusion
Google and Apple are stiff competition for one another and both are making and providing titles that are becoming as big as releases for consoles and PCs. Massive AAA developers are also getting involved in the race for mobile gaming, including Square Enix and EA. The popularity of these companies will help drive forward the progression of mobile games and the technology that goes into today’s and tomorrow’s mobile devices.
Mobile Devices aren’t only evolving and adapting to meet today’s gaming climate, they’re also becoming fast contenders at personal computers, with inventions such as Tablets being very popular as of recently, the processing power and quality of display on these devices are evolving quickly, meaning that it won’t be too long before we can play games on tablets and mobiles that can also be played on consoles, further enhancing the social aspect of today’s gaming.
Declan 