Nokia and Eidos plc, one of the world’s leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, today announced their cooperation in the mobile games arena. According to this agreement, Eidos will develop games for WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) enabled mobile phones over the next two years based on new and existing franchises. The first Eidos game, Gangsters, will be available during the first half of 2001. The games will be offered to consumers via wireless operators.
Nokia offers operators and service providers a mobile game portfolio developed by third parties via the Nokia Mobile Entertainment Service. This is a Nokia hosted and facilitated solution encompassing a continuously growing selection of games, a game developer program, facilitation, server hosting, and a platform for running game applications.
“Nokia strongly believes that mobility will bring unprecedented value to on-line entertainment. This represents a huge business potential for game publishers, such as Eidos. For instance, Datamonitor recently estimated that four out of five mobile phone users will play mobile games by 2005. In revenue terms this will mean a multi-billion dollar business. WAP has rapidly become a widely adopted standard for mobile Internet services and phones, therefore it is the ideal vehicle with which to boost a wide selection of new mobile game services,” said Graham Stafford, Senior Manager, Business Development, Nokia.
“Given Nokia’s global vision of a mobile information society and Eidos’ reputation as a premier developer and publisher of best-selling games, we believe this partnership will result in top-quality products,” said Mike McGarvey, CEO of Eidos.
In the past year, Nokia’s entertainment offering has grown to include a large portfolio of games from top companies through Forum Nokia (www.forum.nokia.com). The Mobile Entertainment Developer program within Forum Nokia currently has more than 45,000 registered entertainment developers. Forum Nokia is an on-line community for third party developers creating mobile applications. Registered members can find a wide range of development tools and supporting documents as well as meet other developers on-line. The Forum Nokia site was established in 1995 and currently has over 400,000 members.
About Nokia:
Nokia is the world leader in mobile communications. Backed by its experience, innovation, user-friendliness and secure solutions, the company has become the leading supplier of mobile phones and a leading supplier of mobile, fixed and IP networks. By adding mobility to the Internet Nokia creates new opportunities for companies and further enriches the daily lives of people. Nokia is a broadly held company with listings on six major exchanges.
About Eidos:
Eidos is one of the world’s largest independent publishers and developers of entertainment software. Eidos develops and publishes a diverse mix of titles for the Sony PlayStation® and PlayStation®2, Sega Dreamcast®, Nintendo Game Boy® Color, Microsoft X-Box and multimedia PC markets in the US, the UK, Europe and Asia.
Further information:
Nokia Mobile Phones, Communications, Tel. +358 7180 08000
www.nokia.com
Eidos Plc, Tel. 020 8636 3000
Mike McGarvey, Chief Executive Officer
Simon Protheroe, Technical Director
Brunswick, Tel. 020 7404 5959
Jonathan Glass