Any idea why Enterbrain went with Ruby for an interpreter, instead of using Java? It seems like such an odd choice to make. Frankly, I never even heard of the language until I started using RPG Maker, although I heard brief mention of "Ruby on Rails"
Even 10 years ago, I'd have favored Java because it does have an interpreter/compiler on almost every device.
RPG Maker would actually lose a lot of the performance that it has right now if it moved to Java. If it was using Java as the scripting language, it would have to use Java for the game/engine as well- currently, Ruby is only used for the scripting capability. The benefit of Ruby here is that the primary distribution of Ruby is in C (there's also JRuby, running on the JVM), so Enterbrain can program the engine in C/C++, and use Ruby to expose bits of light code (graphics is performance/compute heavy, and is completely in C with Ruby interfaces that allow RGSS to access it). C/C++ is faster than Java, and had been used in games more than Java.
At the time when RM was originally developed (RM95/2k/2k3...etc) Java wasn't as suitable for what Eb!/ASCII was doing. Keep in mind that current modern Java is a lot better, and very suitable for game development. However, switching to Java from C/Ruby involves bringing in more developers, or having their C/Ruby developers learn Java and Java libraries. Keep in mind that a lot of the popular Java libraries for games/graphics are still very recent, developed towards the latter end of the previous decade.
You also have to understand that, until the past few years, the market for video games/game development was strongly embedded in Windows desktop. There was no financial reason to jump from C/C++ in the early versions of RM to Java, especially if you don't have any market on Mac OS 9/10, and that Linux did not have the popularity that it has today. Why develop a product that can run anywhere, when all your customers are using Windows? Had they switched to Java in RMXP, they would've had to redo their entire codebase in Java, likely write their own graphics libraries, and add the new functionality in Java as well. Between C/Ruby and redoing everything in Java, the latter is cheaper. Don't need to train developers, don't need to make new libraries. Windows literally throws all the libraries you need at you, like DirectAudio and GDI.
Had Ruby not been around, it's likely that they would've shipped in Python or Lua, again with a core engine in C/C++, and only on Windows.
Concerning the Android/iOS thing, I wonder if Enterbrain couldn't release some sort of patch or utility for the present version which would allow to export a game towards mobile devices, for example in encapsulating the code into some sort of "translator" like the HTML language does with the various web protocols and other email decipherings: this may be a welcome thing...
Whle I'm at it, is it possible to run RPGM games onto the Windows for mobile phones?
In addition to some sort of hypervisor, they'd have to emulate x86 Windows code on those devices (i.e. WINE), which would cause a massive performance drop. Keep in mind, even your most powerful mobile CPUs are only comparable to the older Pentium chips. Running the mobile OS along with telephony/networking, plus the hypervisor and the emulation of an x86 architecture leaves very little computing power left for the game.
The reason why HTML works well with different protocols is because it's a neutral markup language, not a programming language. All it functions as is a mechanism for different systems/browsers/viewers to access data. It's a universal standard, in ways. Instead of HTML translating web protocols, each of the protocols contain a means of producing HTML code. Likewise, 'email decipherings'...? Email is typically sent in plaintext or HTML, there's no deciphering unless you encrypt the email, which is typically handled by a non-HTML utility.
