Boost mobile has multiple J2ME phones available for around $50. Just check Wallmart or Best Buy. You'll need to load the games with a serial cable, but the phones can take a real beating.
J2ME has no future, so it'd be a poor startup idea. Trust me.
You might also want to check garage sales/eBay for old gameboys and games. They're more fun and more robust.
> J2ME has no future, so it'd be a poor startup idea. Trust me.
I don't think J2ME has much of a future for general use phones in rich countries, no. But it has a huge present, and a niche like this might be just fine for a startup, actually.
It's not that hard in and of itself. The problem is developing something for tons of devices, which this specific idea doesn't need to deal with at all; you'd just have one device.
There are thousands, if not millions, of inexpensive phones available from re-manufacturers. A J2ME capable phone can be had for less than $20. Activate it with a pay-as-you go plan if you want to send/receive data or just use them as-is without activating them. Here is one company that will sell you one phone:
Your options increase and price goes down if you want to buy 20 or more phones of one kind.
My company buys these phones, loads a j2ME midlet that always runs in the background getting GPS locations, and sells the unit along with the service for businesses to track their vehicles.
Also a big +1 for the business idea. J2ME phones aren't the hot new thing, for sure, and can't do all the fancy things that a brand new top of the line phone can, but I think there is still a lot of use to be squeezed out of that kind of device.
A 200+ Euro device is not at all what I was talking about (+ expensive development environment). I'm talking about something in the 20 Euro range. My very young daughter would be just fine with a super cheap phone, to press buttons, and see shapes, colors, sounds and things. There is no way I am going to hand her an expensive, relatively fragile, fancy new phone just to play a few games with.
J2ME is not that bad to code in, actually, and is probably "good enough" for the sorts of simple kids games I had in mind. Android would certainly be a lot better, but I am not sure we'll see Android phones at anywhere near the right price point in the near future.
Not something I have the skills/background to pursue, but I think it ought to be possible to do something cheap and robust with a small screen and keys; that can run J2ME games. You'd load them via bluetooth or USB.
J2ME has no future, so it'd be a poor startup idea. Trust me.
You might also want to check garage sales/eBay for old gameboys and games. They're more fun and more robust.