Glu & Celador extend relationship
December 6th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »
Glu‘s work on the “Who wants to be a millionaire” clearly has paid of as both Glu and Celador signed for extending the partnership. Glu delivered the first mobile game under the license back in 2004 and currently has three editions in several languages. Read the full story at Mobile Entertainment Magazine.
THQ’s Q2 & Minick
December 6th, 2006 by Anonymous Blogger Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »
Arjan recently posted about the sale of the Minick shares by THQ to Swisscom. Reason for my to take a dive in the last financial numbers to see if it might shed some light on the sale. Looking at THQ’s Q2 financials, which where posted by THQ last month, the wireless division (still including Minick) has declined in total % vs. other gaming platforms. In Q2 2005, wireless revenue accounted for 6.3% of the sales while in Q2 2006, this number declined to 2.9%. This looks dramatic, but if we look at the total THQ net revenues in those periods, we can say THQ Wireless accounted for $ 8.989.596 in Q2 2005 and in Q2 2006 for $ 6.965.713 which means wireless revenues have shrunk. The complete of the company was 68% up while Wireless is 32,5% down. In an interview with MobileIndustry.biz, Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter tells us that the sale will have a small effect of just a few million which will hardly effect the company’s income statement. However a few million is a lot if you look at the wireless sales in percentages.
Mobile licenses can hurt the original
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Brand Licensing | No Comments »
I have never really been posting it on the blog, but a lot of business contacts know that in my job I always regard mobile game quality as something that is really important. After all, in the end we all want the consumers to come back right? What often amazed me though is the fact that there are always highly branded games which deliver a real poor experience to the user. I will not name the games, as I don’t want to point any fingers, but in the past I have said no to games that could have brought in a lot of money if they went live.
Skyzone about multiplayer games in the US
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | No Comments »
Neil Halder, VP of Content Programming & Strategy at Skyzone has published an article for Gamasutra in regards to multiplayer games in the US. He compares the US mostly with Asia which is far more ahead and gamer centric. He explains that the US has a lot of barriers to overcome of which one certainly is the network. Here in The Netherlands for example, it’s no problem to play a multiplayer game while travelling. The handset has enough possibilities to keep the line open. The US however still had a lot of gaps in the network which makes mobile gaming on the go a problem. Neil recons carriers, developers and device manufacturers should come together to find a solution to ensure the US can move to the next level.
Carphone Warehouse and D2C content
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | No Comments »
Retail giant Carphone Warehouse has announced it’s plans to preinstall it’s own mobile content portal on mobile phones. They will install a J2me based storefront. Initially this will happen via SMS push, but the plans are to have it done directly at the handset vendors. The portal is names mymobilelife and will include mobile games amongst other mobile content. Read the full article at Mobile Entertainment Magazine.
Player X Interview part 2: Follow the consumer
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | No Comments »
MobileIndustry.biz has put online the second part of their interview with Player X CEO Tony Pearce. In this part, they discuss the move to other forms of content that Player X recently made. Read the full interview here.
Handango opened up for Flash Lite
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: Adobe Flash & Air | 1 Comment »
Handango today also announced it has opened it’s doors to sell Flash Lite based mobile games. We already saw operators and even aggregators open the doors, meaning Flash Lite is here to stay for sure.
Redboss working on a new RTS game?
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Game Previews | 1 Comment »
We got hold of some screenshots from a strategy game made at Redboss. The screenshots look extremely promising. Though Redboss did commit the screenshots are theirs, they do not want to let go of any details yet
Mobile games aggregator Selatra steps into Flash Lite
December 5th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Platforms: Adobe Flash & Air | 2 Comments »
Selatra has announced to start dealing arounf Flash Lite based mobile games. Selatra is the first bigger aggregator to announce this support which makes this look as an important step for a lot of developers out there, though for now Selatra works only with one developer called JRVisual.
M:Metrics: Glu the number 2!?
December 4th, 2006 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Analysis & Editorial | 1 Comment »
Though Glu still hasn’t shown any financials yet, M:Metrics calculated that Glu has beaten Gameloft to the race for the big number 2 in Q3 2006. At the same time, they also calculated loss of market share at EA who dropped from 32.2% (Q2) to 26.5% (Q3). The number four is also surprising as Namco has gained more market share as well, meaning they have put Hands-On back to the fifth position. It’s clear the battle of the giants is far from over.
Disclaimer:Arjan Olsder is the Vice President of Pixalon Studios. Opinions expressed on this publication do not have to represent those of Pixalon Studios. |
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