Ea Mobilizing Franchises

Electronic Arts has signed deals with Verizon Wireless and Sprint to bring some of its biggest video game franchises to mobile phones.

A Verizon spokesman said that many startup companies and small publishers entered the mobile game space early on but the capabilities offered by next-generation technology have attracted such big game companies as EA, AMF, Disney, Gameloft, Jamdat and Sony Pictures Digital.

"The transition from 2-D to 3-D mobile games is similar to the shift we'll see in the next few years as the game industry shifts from Xbox and Play- Station 2 to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3," EA Mobile vp and general manager John Batter said.

Batter said the transition will be a bit slower because mobile game publishers have to deal with such additional factors as infrastructure and the different capabilities of carriers but that it is happening and should be complete in the next couple of years for North America.

"By late 2006 and early 2007, we'll see 3-D cell phone games on par graphically with PSP games," said Batter, who added that this year's EA cell phone games featured software-rendered 3-D graphics, while next year's games will feature hardware-accelerated graphics.

EA is targeting both core gamers and casual gamers with its initial cell phone offerings. Batter believes there will be room in both areas as the gaming-enabled cell phone market reaches 1 billion handsets over the next few years, creating a large, diverse marketplace.

With cell phone technology increasing at a breakneck pace, Batter said that a larger segment of gamers likely will turn to mobile phones for gaming on the go, while a separate segment will carry both a cell phone and a gaming device such as a PlayStation Player or Nintendo DS.

Among the titles that will be available are "Madden NFL 06," "NBA Live 06," "The Sims 2" and casual games from Pogo.com. Additionally, "Need for Speed Underground 2" will launch exclusively on VCast as a 3-D racing game. EA will bring such franchises as "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06" and Pogo.com games including "Poppit," "Tri-Peaks Solitaire" and "Turbo 21" to Sprint's Game Lobby.