NGame signed agreement to distribute wireless games from S. Korea’s Opentown, latest move by company as it seeks to expand business beyond in-house development of titles. Goal is to have wireless game publishing and distribution agreements represent 90% of revenue by mid-2002, up from 50%, Business Development Dir. Javier Bonnemaison said. Under most recent agreement, nGame has rights to distribute Opentown titles outside China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. Opentown has exclusive on nGame titles for Korea and Taiwan. As part of pact, Opentown is expected to supply more than 50 games, including next-generation titles based on 3G wireless platform. NGame, which supplies games for Tellus Mobility in Canada and Sprint and AT&T in U.S. also has begun licensing program for its content authoring software and game platform technology. It signed licensing deal with The Games Kitchen and expects to have another 19 software developers on board by mid-2002, Bonnemaison said. “It’s much better to become a publisher partner” as opposed to being only game developer, he said: “You become a publisher and as long as you ensure quality, it’s more profitable.” NGame has developed range of titles internally including Rat Race, Air Aces and most recent release Top Gun. It has claimed to have more than 250,000 registered users, half of them in U.S. In addition to Sprint and AT&T, nGame’s Connected Games Server hosts content for Carphone Warehouse’s wireless portal Freeserve, Mivia, Yahoo.
Richard Lehrberg, ex-Activision and Interplay Entertainment, appointed a 3DO dir… Eric Feiner, ex-Mainstream Sales & Mktg. Group, named NewKidCo sales vp.
PS one dilemma currently facing Sony in Europe is having no impact on U.S. market, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) spokeswoman told us Wed. Dutch authorities had stopped PS one shipments out of Netherlands warehouse because of environmental and health concerns caused by high levels of cadmium that were discovered in game system’s peripheral cables.
Sega is preparing commercial applications for its Animanium software, Japanese news report said. Software is set of tools for creating digital animation based on robot-engineering technologies developed at U. of Tokyo. Animanium is based on 2- legged humanoid robot control that technology report said was developed by Yoshihiko Nakamura as part of govt.-funded R&D project on human-like robots. Sega already has used software to develop animated series for TV and formed consortium to promote software with group of animation companies, computer graphics software developers, toy makers. Report said Sega planned to start marketing Animanium-based animation training products to schools in Feb. and later market Animanium products to animation and movie production companies.
NDS, IBM and Sagem have formed alliance to develop digital set-top box (STB) with personal video recorder (PVR) that’s expected to be available by mid-2002. Under agreement, NDS will provide its XTV PVR and VideoGuard copy protection software, while Sagem builds STB using IBM’s next generation controller. IBM controller is based on PowerPC processor platform and is available in several versions including those with 49.5, 54, 108 and 162 MHz speeds. IBM spokesman said jointly developed STB would be based on next-generation PowerPC architecture, details of which weren’t available. IBM’s most advanced controllers typically have contained MPEG-2 audio/video decoder, optional Dolby Digital decoder, Macrovision copy protection. IBM and NDS separately signed agreement earlier this year to integrate latter’s Random Access into Scrambled Content Process technologies.
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) is backing release of PS2 game Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy with what it called “massive print advertising campaign running over 6 months” that it said would “reach more than 26 million readers.” Ads are appearing in include Entertainment Weekly, Gear, Maxim, Movieline and Playboy as well as gaming magazines. Company also kicked off TV campaign. Game started shipping Wed.
Infogrames started shipping Game Boy Color title Nsync Get to the Show at $29.99. E- (Everyone) rated game was developed by Stunt Puppy Entertainment. Title follows Nsync Hotline Fantasy Phone & CD-Rom Game still shipping at $39.99.
Public awareness, not tougher laws or more technology, is what’s needed to protect copyrighted works on Internet, several speakers said Tues. at Business Software Alliance Global Tech Summit. Instead of Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) anticircumvention provisions, or yet-to-be-introduced proposal by Sen. Hollings (D-S.C.) to require govt. standards for digital rights management, there should be massive, effective education effort to get people to take copyright laws seriously, several speakers said.
GM, Hughes and EchoStar filed applications at FCC for approval to transfer control of licenses to merged company, companies said, outlining plans and goals of merger. There wasn’t much new in filings, which presented familiar EchoStar positions for antitrust approval of DBS merger despite opposition from Congress and broadcast industry. Primary factor was much- repeated premise that Hughes-EchoStar merger would provide many benefits for consumers, including more choices, better programming, competitive prices, viable alternative to cable. EchoStar also promised improved DBS service to Hawaii and Alaska. “There will be no anticompetitive multichannel video programming distributor market effects with the proposed transaction” filing said.
Mobile Games Interoperability Forum (MGIF) will hold its first Supporters Workshop Tues. in London. MGIF was started in July 2001 by Ericcson, Motorola, Nokia and Siemens to define mobile games interoperability specifications and application programming interfaces they said would enable game developers to produce and deploy mobile games over wireless networks.