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EA posts

Apple: "the iPhone is a gaming console"

by Joshua Topolsky posted Dec 12th 2008 @ 4:43PM

According to extremely reliable and embarrassingly handsome Engadget sources, at an iPhone event held today, John Geleynse (AKA Director of Technology Evangelism at Apple) made some statements regarding the iPhone platform that should seriously raise a few eyebrows. During an ADC "iPhone Tech Talk" in San Jose, Geleynse apparently waxed excited about the potential for the handheld as a viable threat to the DS (and the PSP by proxy), calling the iPhone a "gaming console" and claiming that "it's not a phone, it's a console experience." Pretty bold talk about a device that has yet to really prove its gaming mettle, but nothing new from the Apple camp as far as we're concerned. Considering these comments alongside those from a recent interview in which Greg Joswiak compared the touch to the DS, it seems clear that the company is making a noticeable effort to push this angle. Adding some fuel to that fire is PR that just went out announcing a series of EA "sneak peek" events at Apple Stores around the US. In their words:

Throughout the month of December Apple Stores in New York, LA, San Francisco and Chicago will host special "EA Games Sneak Peek" events where Electronic Arts will discuss why the iPod touch and iPhone are amazing platforms for mobile gaming...

While there's no question the iPhone and touch have made inroads when it comes to gaming, it still isn't clear that there's going to be anything beyond a casual interest for these devices. Then again, if the Wii's success has proven anything, it's that there's plenty of cash in casual if you can make it appealing enough. And you know how Apple feels about appealing products and money.

EA reveals Android gaming plans: Tetris, Bejeweled, Monopoly, oh my!

by Darren Murph posted Oct 30th 2008 @ 1:33PM

Hot on the heels of Electronic Arts kinda-sorta slamming Nokia for its lackluster N-Gage gaming platform comes word that the video game giant will be dabbling in the world of Android here shortly. Unsurprisingly, we're informed that Tetris will be the first Android title out, while Bejeweled and Monopoly should follow suit in November. According to EA Mobile vice president Adam Sussman, "Android is another exciting new platform to offer customers great games with enhancements like touch and tilt capabilities," and while we weren't given specifics outside of the aforesaid titles, more games are definitely "in development."

Nokia expects "challenging times" for handset gaming to continue

by Darren Murph posted Oct 29th 2008 @ 8:40PM

It shouldn't come as any huge surprise that the handset gaming market isn't exactly thriving, and with these curious economic times surrounding us, we have all ideas that folks have better things to worry over than what their N-Gage buddies are doing. And so does Nokia. According to Jaakko Kaidesoja, head of Nokia's gaming operations, he "expects challenging times to continue," noting that the "overall gaming market is likely not growing." Predictably, he was fairly bullish on the eventual success of the N-Gage platform and the iPhone, but he did confess that pre-loading the N-Gage software onto mobiles would greatly help adoption (you think?). In related news, EA Mobile's Peter Parmenter thrashed Nokia by calling N-Gage "not quite polished yet" and referring to it as a soft launch. It's okay Nokia -- we still have to find something to do on the can, so surely gaming fits in there somewhere.

[Via mocoNews]

Read - Nokia's take
Read - EA Mobile's take

EA delivering downloadable games to Nokia handsets

by Donald Melanson posted Sep 13th 2006 @ 5:23PM

Nokia and Electronic Arts have announced a partnership that'll see the uber-gamemaker delivering some of its mobile titles directly to Nokia handsets via Nokia's "Content Discoverer" portal. The initial line-up of titles, set to drop this holiday season, include: Tetris, Tetris Mania, The Sims 2, Doom, FIFA 06, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 and FIFA Street 2. EA's also announced that it'll support Nokia's next generation gaming platform, with yet-to-be-announced "custom-designed" titles for Nokia S60 devices. Not announced, however, are any indication of prices for the games, or any details on what other games might be forthcoming. Madden would seem like a safe bet, and we can only hope that Spore will find its way into our hands as soon as possible.

EA to bypass carriers, sell mobile games direct

by Chris Ziegler posted Jun 16th 2006 @ 10:01PM

Feel like you're getting held down by the man every time you check out your carrier's content portal and can't find the game you're looking for, simply because they chose not to carry it? EA feels your pain, too -- though more from the revenue-sharing perspective -- and they're looking to do something about it. Their Mobile division has announced they're hard at work designing a solution for buying mobile games (like Will Wright's upcoming "Spore") on your PC direct from EA and downloading the purchased binary to your phone from there. Obviously, they're looking to make the process as painless as possible; no amount of foolproofing could make a two-step process involving two devices as easy as downloading a game directly through your WAP browser, but hey, if this is what we have to do to get our Spore on, you'd best believe we'll be digging our cables out of the drawer.

[Via MocoNews]