In 1981, teenagers irritated their parents by milling around in arcades. Now, two decades later, technology has moved on and adolescents wind up dad by obsessing over mobile phones.

Can anything bridge the gap between the two generations? Yes it can. Welcome back, Space Invaders. Taito's coin-op classic is returning in a new guise - as a mobile game. In the new year it will be made available for Java-enabled handsets, thus moistening the nostalgia ducts of the over 30s and slowly sucking in the PlayStation generation.

"Blimey dad, it might be greyscale and retro but it rocks!" Space Invaders, along with Atari games such as Asteroids and Galaxian, (also being launched in the new year) are seen as the perfect vehicles to take mobile gaming out of "early adopter" mode and into the mainstream.

Because, for all the sterling work done by committed wireless developers, the market remains stuck at phase one. The problems are self-evident. First, all titles thus far have been developed for Wap and SMS.

And neither is a good platform for games. There is no animation with Wap and because all the processing is done at the server end rather than in the handset, gameplay is reduced to selecting options and waiting for a response.

Consequently, games are turn-based and often painfully slow. SMS is really only workable for quizzes and text-based adventures. This is why the overwhelming majority of mobile games being played are those embedded in the handset. Trouble is, they get boring and they don't earn money for anybody.

The consensus among mobile games developers is that the magic combination of Java and GPRS (general packet radio service) will change everything. How so? First Java (or more precisely its gaming "flavour", J2ME) puts processing power into the handset. With Java, mobile gamers can enjoy the kind of animation only possible previously in embedded games.

But unlike their embedded cousins, these are games you can change. Java phones have a small "virtual machine" loaded into their memory so they can run any J2ME program downloaded into them. A program such as Space Invaders, in fact. GPRS fits with Java perfectly.

It is packet-based so users pay by the amount of data downloaded rather than the airtime. And download times are much faster than on circuit-switched networks. The Java/GPRS combo makes all kinds of goodies possible. It should make gaming more transparent - just click on games, download the one you want and play it.

No need to worry about loading up the internet browser and maintaining a connection. It also makes the payment method clearer. Games providers want to follow the arcade model in which you buy 10 lives for, say, 50p, after which the game expires (although you will be invited to "play again?" at the end).

And because all the networks want to build communities, players will be encouraged to forward games links to friends, issue challenges and text their mates with high scores etc. There is already some evidence of the appetite for this kind of gaming.

In France a company called In-Fusio has put its own version of Java (called ExEn) on Trium and Philips handsets and regularly notches up 2m gameplays a month. Java should take the market further because it is a standard that can be applied by a handset company or content creator. Matt Spall of Morpheme, a mobile games developer, believes there is real momentum behind it.

"Wap was a relative failure because it was over-hyped and there wasn't enough content available. With Java, there is a broad commitment to have plenty of games ready from day one." Morpheme has already sold its first six Java games. But even with so much goodwill behind it, Java gaming will be a minority pastime until the market is saturated with enabled handsets. And that is not expected to happen until 2003.

In the new year, Digital Bridges' Space Invaders and iFone's Atari collection will be made available to around 300,000 players - the total number of consumers expected to buy either a Motorola Accompli or a Siemens SL45i, the first two Java handsets to go on sale in Europe. By the end of the year, the floodgates should be opening up. Nokia maintains it will sell 50m Java handsets in 2002.

Just one hurdle remains: jargon. If Java is to take off it must be the technology that dare not speak its name. The marketers must find a way to promote it without telling us what it is.