Sony Ericsson to focus on mobile gaming  

MUSCAT — A focus on cutting-edge Mobile Java 3D technology has made Sony Ericsson a preferred choice among game developers and a leader in mobile gaming.

"Mobile gaming is a space that Sony Ericsson intends to lead and we will be speaking and exhibiting at the eGames in December," Peter Andersson, Ericsson's country manager said here.

"We are also excited by the fact that Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) is hosting such an innovative and important gaming event," Andersson said. In June this year, Sony Ericsson introduced its new Java platform, Java Platform 7 (JP-7), which supports the development of advanced games with high picture resolution and better 3D graphics, and makes it possible to run several applications simultaneously.

Peter Ahnegård, content acquisition manager, Games & Graphics at Sony Ericsson, says the company has been involved since early on in the mobile 3D era. "We took on the challenge to educate operators and game developers on the technology. Today, the majority of our game developer partners are producing 3D games in addition to their 2D games. For example, Beach Mini Golf 3D and Extreme Air Snowboarding 3D by Digital Chocolate," said Ahnegård.

The benefit for game developers using Sony Ericsson's platform is that they do not have to make changes to every game they produce to fit the various Java handsets on the market.

"Our strategy is to base a number of devices on the same Java Platform version. Not only does this save developers a tremendous amount of time and money, but it also means operators can spend less time on game verification later on," says Ahnegård.

"Game developers have said they are really happy with this approach, and recently Fishlabs, which is one of our game developer partners, stated that they only need a single binary code to support all our 3D handsets," Ahnegård said.

Sony Ericsson is not only focusing on making it easier for game developers to create games. The company is also making sure playing and accessing games becomes more attractive to consumers.

"If people knew how to access mobile games in an easy way, the market would explode," commented Ahnegård.

The Fun & Download service, which can be accessed through the company's website and WAP service, is meant to make it easy for consumers to download all kinds of content, from video clips to games.

"We now have a very good games offering on the portal and traffic has increased thanks to improved accessibility and promotions. Today, the major part of revenue from Fun & Downloads is games," he informed.

Another such service is PlayNow, which can be accessed through the menu option on phones, a service that is updated on a regular basis.

"Sales have increased dramatically with new users accessing PlayNow and we will continue to develop the service in the year ahead by adding new functionality and improving the user interface," commented Ahnegård.

Sony Ericsson has also been making mobile phones more attractive to gamers. The W550 and W600 Walkman phones, launched in 2005, and the K790 and K800 Cyber-shot phones, launched in 2006, are examples of this.

These devices are very entertainment-focused and appropriate for games because they have two additional A and B gaming buttons on top of the screen and a screen display that can be rotated 90 degrees to support two-handed game control in landscape mode. This creates a PC or console-like game experience familiar to more-experienced gamers.

Sony Ericsson intends to continue developing new devices with gaming features, for example, the P990 smartphone, the M600 messaging device, and the W950 Walkman devices that will take mobile gaming into the future.

According to Ahnegård, the UIQ 3 phones not only have hardware-accelerated 3D, they also provide better graphics than first-generation consoles.

In an effort to encourage people to play more games, Sony Ericsson is pre-installing games on all their devices. "Our job is to make sure operators have a solid and extensive offering for each device we introduce to the market," comments Ahnegård.