mmO2
launched the O2 games arcade - the first commercial Java games service
in the UK - bringing pictures, colour, sound and an arcade feel to mobile
gaming. All O2 games arcade games will be free to UK customers for one
month from 1 to 30 September 2002. The service will launch across the
other O2 territories (Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands) from October.
A
wide selection of games are offered within the O2 games arcade at launch,including
Atari classics - Asteroids(R), Pong(R) and Breakout(R) - plus
Marslander(TM), Men in Black II(TM), Denkiblocks!(TM), Oilrig(TM), Racing
Fever(TM), Forbidden Jungle(TM), Pinball - The Castle(TM), Turtles(TM),
Towers(TM), and Popstar(TM). Around three new games a month will be
added to the O2 games arcade. The Java-enabled Nokia 3410 is already
available and proving
very popular with youth audiences. The Siemens M50 will be available
from 1 October, and a new range of Java-enabled devices, many of them
colour, will be
on sale pre-Christmas.
Analysts
forecast that gaming on mobiles will be big business, extending the
role of the mobile phone beyond communications. Forrester Research predicts
that, in three years, 45% of mobile subscribers in Europe will regularly
pay to
play games on their mobile. Ovum forecasts that global spending on mobile
games will total €4.4 billion by 2006. O2's own research highlighted
that, when shown games from the O2 games arcade, 65% of mobile owners
aged 16-19 expressed a 'strong interest' in downloading them to their
mobiles.
To
date, the gaming market on mobile devices has been driven by SMS games.
This
year, more than four million games-related text messages per month have
been
sent over the O2 UK network driven by the World Cup, Big Brother 3 and
'Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire'.
mmO2
is working with a number of game suppliers and developers, including
Motorola, THQ, Digital Bridges, Macrospace, MR. Goodliving, Sumea, Picofun
and
Ifone to offer brands such as Atari(TM) and Men in Black II(TM). As
well as
partnering leading branded suppliers, O2 will leverage its online application
developer communities - including the 9,000 registered to sourceO2,
mmO2's
accelerator of mobile services - to create winning games of the future.
Tim
Raby, head of games for O2, said: 'Our research highlights that customers
are looking for better 'playability', a greater challenge, enhanced
colour
graphics and a 'console-like' feel to games on their mobile - all of
which the
O2 games arcade will deliver. We have selected games that are ideally
suited to
mobile - that look good on screen and take only minutes to download.
To ensure
variety, we will be adding around three games per month to our portfolio
to
ensure that our gamers never get bored.'
Kent
Thexton, chief marketing and data officer, mmO2, added: 'This is another
example of how compelling devices and applications are coming together
to make
mobile data a reality today. We believe that the O2 games arcade and
multimedia
messaging, which we will launch shortly, are highly desirable mobile
data
applications that our customers will embrace.'
The
launch of the O2 games arcade is another first for mmO2 in the mobile
data
arena. It was first to market with innovative mobile data devices including
BlackBerry and the xda as well as the 3G live test and evaluation site
on the
Isle of Man.
Pricing
All
O2 games arcade games will be free to O2 customers until 30 September
2002.
There will be a small additional 'download' charge dependent on tariff
and file
size - an average GSM charge is expected to be around 30 pence (€0.50).
Thereafter, games will be charged on an 'event basis' similar to ringtones.
Every game will cost £1.50 (€2.50), plus the download charge
mentioned above.
Once the customer has downloaded the game, it will remain active on
their
handset for at least 30 days and can be played as often as liked.
Availability
The
O2 games arcade games are available to all customers on the O2 network
(both
pre and post paid), provided their Java-enabled mobile is supported
by the O2
games arcade. Access to the O2 games arcade varies by device, but has
been
designed to be intuitive and similar to other such services.
