Eidos to provide interactive entertainment for WAP

Nokia and Eidos have announced an agreementwhere Eidos will develop gamesfor WAP enabled mobile phones over the next two years based on new andexisting franchises, with the first Eidos game, Gangsters, to be availableduring the first half of 2001.

The games will be offered to consumers via wireless operators and isaccompanied with news that Rage Software has also signed a deal to providegame content to Nokia.

“Given Nokia’s global vision of a mobile information society and Eidos’reputation as a premier developer and publisher of best-selling games, webelieve this partnership will result in top-quality products,” said MikeMcGarvey, CEO of Eidos.

“Nokia strongly believes that mobility will bring unprecedented value toon-line entertainment. This represents a huge business potential for gamepublishers, such as Eidos. For instance, Datamonitor recently estimated thatfour out of five mobile phone users will play mobile games by 2005. Inrevenue terms this will mean a multi-billion dollar business. WAP hasrapidly become a widely adopted standard for mobile Internet services andphones, therefore it is the ideal vehicle with which to boost a wideselection of new mobile game services,” said Graham Stafford, seniormanager, business development, Nokia.

Nokia offers operators and service providers a mobile game portfoliodeveloped by third parties via the Nokia Mobile Entertainment Service. Thisis a Nokia hosted and facilitated solution encompassing a continuouslygrowing selection of games, a game developer program, facilitation, serverhosting, and a platform for running game applications.

News page content input by Dominic Robinson, 2001.