Cellphone giants launch mobile gaming initiative

Ericsson, Motorola, Siemens and now Nokia have launched their joint programme to develop a standard format for cellphone-based multiplayer games.

The first three partners announced last March their intention to announce that that they were going to develop such a standard last.

Desperate to drive interest in 2.5G and 3G networks - on the back of which the three are desperate to sell more cellular handsets, now that world+dog have plenty of 2G, ie. digital, ones.

At the time, Nokia showed little interest in the plan, but it's interesting to see that the Finnish company is now a member of the consortium, having at last experienced the financial problems the other three had earlier this year.

The Mobile Games Interoperability Forum will essentially provide a framework for "games developers to produce and deploy mobile games that can be distributed across multiple game servers and wireless networks, and played over different mobile devices", the companies said today.

And: "The MGI Forum will also work closely with tool developing companies to develop Software Development Kits (SDKs) and other necessary tools for game developers. One initial company is Metrowerks, with whom work has already begun."

Metrowerks is, of course, owned by Motorola, so the revenue model nicely extends beyond handset sales. ®

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