Gaming giant Electronic Arts will boost production of video games for mobile phones over the next nine months, bringing top-selling franchises “Fifa Football” and “The Sims” to handsets, the company said Thursday.
By mid-2005, EA will offer for download four mobile-phone game titles sold through most major mobile-phone operators in Europe, North America and Latin America, including Germany’s T-Mobile, Britain’s Vodafone and America’s Verizon Wireless.
The company said in coming years it expects to sell mobile-phone versions of its top-selling titles in the Java and Brew programming languages.Compared to the booming video game business, the market for mobile-phone gaming, estimated by consultants at $1 billion this year, has been slow to take off as consumers have been forced to settle for simpler games often with inferior graphics.
And handset design has proved to be less than ideal for zapping alien invaders or sinking a game-winning putt. As a result, top-flight publishers such as EA have adapted few of their titles for phones.
News source: MSNBC
