Taiwan game software developers take aim at cell phone market

Taipei, Aug. 22, 2003 (CENS)--Several game software developers in Taiwan are expanding into the cell phone online game business and hoping to develop games for Nokia's new N-Gage game deck handset model.

Nokia, the No. 1 cell phone brand in the world, and Sega Corp. of Japan just announced an agreement in which Nokia will acquire assets of Sega.com Inc., a subsidiary of Sega. The agreement will expand the online game and service offerings of the Nokia N-Gage game deck.

The Sega Network Application Package (SNAP), which enables high-performance networked multiplayer games, will become the platform for online games delivered through Nokia handsets.

Nokia will also continue to cooperate with companies such as Sega, Eidos, and THQ in developing new game titles for cell phones.

Industry sources said that Nokia's move is part of a preemptive strategy to outflank strong newcomers, such as Microsoft, from catching up with it in the third-generation (3G) mobile telecom market.

The sources said that content providers, including the game software developers, are becoming increasingly important to the success of handset and cell phone service providers.

At least two major game software companies in Taiwan, InterServ International Inc. and Softstar Entertainment Inc., began developing cell phone games this year. Both companies have expressed interest in developing games for the N-Gage game deck handset, the sources said, though Nokia currently has no plans to sell the N-Gage in Taiwan.

InterServ developed the world's first online cell phone game in cooperation with Motorola. All of the actions and symbols of figures in the cell phone-version game software were simplified to work smoothly with the limited transmission bandwidth and memory capacity of general packet radio service (GPRS) handsets.

Softstar recently set up a new cell phone game software venture with a mainland Chinese telecom carrier.

Some local game software developers said they are planning games that can be played on multiple platforms, including personal computers, cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).