Some movement in the mobile game industry…
Infospace plans eight new titles in the next six months in Europe, all of which have been developed in house. There’s mostly original IP, but a couple are licenses (MTV’s Pimp My Ride and LeMans 2006)…the directory giant is focusing on casual games, such as sports, puzzle and pub games. The whole effort is (probably) part of Infospace‘s broader plan to diversify its mobile content, being displeased with the fact that 80% of its revenues are from label tones.
Glu Mobile has signed some big licenses recently…after the Microsoft one at the beginning of the month its landed the mobile rights from Sony Computer Entertainment America to develop and publish the mobile version of ATV Offroad Fury, the PlayStation 2
system’s blockbuster off-road racing title. (Don’t do it in real life, play the game, it’s less destructive).
Namco is also offering a new game (along with yet more releases of retro titles). The new game is the mobile version of the board game Scene It? (which is apparently the current top-selling board game worldwide)…it’s actually two games: “Scene It? Movie Edition and Scene It? TV Edition, both of which will task players with answering entertainment trivia via their mobiles.” This follows Namco’s tradition of releasing multiple games for each IP. “According to Namco, “rapidly increasing network speeds and streaming video technology will allow players to view full-motion TV and movie clip-based trivia questions.” The games are scheduled for a winter 2006 release.” And of course there are new releases of Galaga and PacMan, both exclusive to Sprint. The Galaga game will be the first to utilise Sprint’s Game Lobby Service, which charges people 25c every time they want to play a game. I guess the good news is that true fans of the game will be able to play the same one for weeks without getting killed…
THQ Wireless is set for an evil summer, with plans for Star Wars Imperial Ace (where players team up with Darth Vader to crush the rebels), Destroy All Humans! 2 (joining alien invaders against mankind), The Sopranos Poker, Saints Row and — perhaps the most evil of all — Spongebob Squarepants.
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