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mmO2 Launches 'The O2 Games Arcade'
- The First Commercial Java-TM- Games Service
in the UK
NEW YORK, Aug 28, 2002 -- mmO2 today 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 EUR 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 (EUR0.50). Thereafter, games will be charged
on an `event basis' similar to ringtones. Every game will cost (pound)1.50 (EUR2.50), 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.
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