Author Archive
CTIA: impressions at QB 1
September 13th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Events & Conferences | No Comments »
QB visited CTIA and MECCA yesterday and posted their day one impressions. The first impressions are not overly enthusiastic, but still we envy the guys for being there ;-).
Vivendi to acquire Centerscore
September 13th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »
Vivendi announced on their website the acquisition of Centerscore, a mobile studio that has released several award winning titles. With the acquisition, Vivendi hopes to accelerate their growth into the market.
"The Vivendi Games Mobile division is gaining good traction in the worldwide mobile marketplace," said Cindy Cook, chief strategy and marketing officer for Vivendi Games. "The addition of the Centerscore team is another step in our plan to be among the top mobile publishers in the industry."
"Centerscore’s imaginative games have consistently been top sellers; and the diverse lineup of titles, particularly their excellent range of casual games, is a welcome addition to our existing portfolio," said Paul Maglione, president, Vivendi Games Mobile. "What we found most exceptional about Centerscore is the Company’s ability to successfully build a team of designers, artists, developers and testers from the ground up, and to execute the creation and distribution of great games from under one roof."
"As a young, creative team built around developing original games, Centerscore was hesitant to join a large company. However, Vivendi Games Mobile has the vision, the strength and the people with heart to make them an oustanding market leader," said Oliver Miao, CEO of Centerscore. "We are truly thrilled to join the Vivendi Games Mobile team in delivering exciting, new games to everyday people."
Frogger hits the $ 10 million mark
September 13th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »
Konami announced it’s Frogger mobile games have sold over $ 10 million in gross sales. This news comes together with the 25 year celebration of the license which started out in 1981. To celebrate, Konami will launch Frogger 25th Evolution this fall.
A lesson in licensing from Gameloft
September 11th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »
Gameloft‘s CFO Alexandre de Rochefort has in a recent interview with MobileIndustry.biz warned the competition about licensing games. In the interview, he notes out that Gameloft is only doing long term licensing deals as that keeps the company safe from license holders that in the end run off with the knowledge to do it themselves. As an example, they pitched forward two of their main competitors, I-Play and Glu. I-Play is currently in the position where it had to recall all EA Mobile games as EA will enter the market themselves with I-Play’s marketing efforts as basis. Also, Alexandre pointed to Glu. With the takeover of iFone, they gained the license for Sonic the Hedgehog, but Alexandre expects they will loose it soon. For all of you who have visited Sega at the E3, you already know Sega is building up it’s distribution network rapidly which is fuelling this rumor.
New rumors, the Playstation phone!?
September 11th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Smartphones & Tablets | No Comments »
It’s not unthinkable and Izumi Kawanishi from SCE won’t even deny it, even better, it’s an interesting idea! So far we have seen rumors throughout the mobile industry of Apple popping up with their iPhone or whatever it will be called. Sony, who of course can utilize it’s SonyEricsson VC for such an action has never really been looked at though, so the guys at IGN just had to pop the question. The only disturbing fact about his remarks is that Izumi looks at the PSP for phone features. As we all know this device would actually lack the support for GSM or CDMA networks and a handy way of inserting phone numbers which means the PSP probably has to be refitted with a touch screen and another internal antenna / sim card holder. Coming back to SonyEricsson and it’s remarketing of the Walkman brand, it seems more logical to refit a phone with the Playstation brand. SonyEricsson’s SVP Rikko Sakaguchi also helps to fuel the rumors by announcing the company is working on something. These facts where put in place by MobileMentalism.
Nokia ditches the numbers
September 11th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Smartphones & Tablets | No Comments »
A new time is rising for Nokia‘s marketing department as they decided to change their classical phone titles, which where numbers, for real titles. Though Nokia is one of the last to start this way of marketing, they are confident they can still benefit from it as it’s easier to create a brand from a phone’s title then just a number. As an example, this can be compared to Motorola which did excellent marketing around their RAZR models.
Interview with Midori Yuassa
September 11th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in People | No Comments »
MobileIndustry.biz posted their interview with Midori Yuasa, EVP at Capcom regarding their experience in the mobile market. In the interview, Midori discusses the problems in the US market handsets vs the Asian models, their competition toward companies like EA and if mobile gaming will indeed take over from console and PC titles.
New on the blog
September 8th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Other news | 2 Comments »
Today I was going over all information I have over the mobile games industry and figured it might be worth sharing some stuff with you. One of those things is my library of bookmarks. I am currently putting them all in del.icio.us and have made some direct links on the bottom of the right column. Also added, are the pictures I have taken during some of the events I was at. They are not top quality as it’s mostly taken with a crappy camera, but next time I will take a better one with me and actually make some better photo’s regarding mobile
PopCap selects Square Enix for Japan
September 8th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »
Though in Europe, we are used to see games like Bejeweled coming from Glu, PopCap has chosen a different publisher for Japan. Square Enix is the chosen one as PopCap strongly believes in their distribution power. Read the full story at QB!
Disclaimer:Arjan Olsder is the Vice President of Pixalon Studios. Opinions expressed on this publication do not have to represent those of Pixalon Studios. |
Partnerships:Contact Us:
|
Other (Dutch) Publications:Copyright 2004-2010 Digishock Publishing. All Rights Reverved. |
