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Gameloft, the French company that develops for mobile platforms, has announced that they will be taking on the Moblin software stack and will be porting some of their games to it. The press release (not currently on the Gameloft website) states "We see the use of MIDs as a perfect platform to allow consumers [...]

With all the hubbub surrounding the App Store these days, the blogophiles among us may forget that, for casual users, everything is pretty sweet. Browse. Tap. Download. Launch. For mobile gaming fans this is especially true. Check out the Top Apps list, and you’ll routinely see games hogging most of the spots. Don’t think this [...]

EA Mobile said it is giving serious consideration to launching a mobile game subscription service in Europe. According to PocketGamer.biz , EA Mobile's European vice president of publishing Javier Ferreira floated the subscription concept Monday during an EA Mobile roundtable in London: "The kind of subscription we are thinking about is that you'd subscribe to an EA channel, and you can download five games a month maybe, and the price for that might be similar to what you'd pay per download now," Ferreira said. "We think we've got to broaden the business models that we're offering to consumers, to encourage more usage, and new users." Although EA Mobile currently releases two or three new games each month in Europe, Ferreira said the firm will not attempt to step up production to compete with rivals like Gameloft, which reportedly plans to release as many as 80 titles this year alone. "We are very far from trying to release 80 games," he said. "We want to focus our R&D expenditure on some of the more innovative things that are going to drive the market forward, rather than making what might be the same game with different brands on top. That's not doing much for the market... There are too many games in the market, and from a consumer perspective I don't think there's a need for so many games out there. It might be a sensible strategy from a revenue perspective, but I don't think it's necessarily a sensible strategy from a consumer perspective. Our focus has been on launching hits. We are focused on quality over volume." For more on EA Mobile's subscription plans: - read this PocketGamer.biz article Related articles: EA Mobile scores Taito game licenses EA Mobile kicks off content, news site

Filed under: Games , Software , Apple , OS X Spore aside, we imagine we'll all occasionally need something just a little less cerebral and involving to pass the handful of minutes between trains, buses, meetings, connecting flights, and the like when third-party games hit the iPhone in full force come this June. To that end, Gameloft's got your back, announcing that it'll be flush with "over 15" titles for Apple's piece before the year's out. No specific games have been announced in the company's initial press release, but it does mention that they've "started to create a strong line-up" already, so here's hoping a solid percentage of 'em won't suck. Read | Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

-- Modojo has published Telephia's top ten mobile game publishers for the second quarter of this year—I'm pretty sure this is for the US, but not 100 percent. Rather than give numerical rankings Telephia has grouped the publishers into tiers: Tier 1: EA Mobile Tier 2: Gameloft, Glu Mobile, Namco Networks Tier 3: Hands-On Mobile, I-Play Tier 4: Superscape, Vivendi Games Mobile Tier 5: mDisney, Sony Pictures Mobile, Digital Chocolate There's a couple of things to note: Namco seems to be increasing marketshare since Gameloft and Glu used to be significantly ahead of everyone else except EA, and it's the introduction of Vivendi Games into the top ten list. Also, Hands-On is having trouble , so its position may be tenuous. --I-play has committed to support Nokia's N-Gage platform, which isn't really surprising. The first game will be World Rally Championship and Super Mah Jong, although the company will apparently focus on "one-thumb" games—which seems a little strange, considering N-Gage is aimed at fairly experienced gamers. ( RCR News ) --Hands-On has launched its World Poker Tour Texas Hold'Em 'play-for-fun' multiplayer game on 3UK for 1.99 pounds a month (US$4). The release has some interesting figures about how the game has done in the US: Currently 200,000 multiplayer hands are played each week in the US, with around 10,000 unique users playing each day. The average user plays for four hours per month, with hundreds of players exceeding sessions of nearly eight hours straight. It has been downloaded over 3.6 million times. ( release ) --Exit Games has added Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3 to its mobile multiplayer platform… ( Modojo )

Ubisoft Entertainment has sold its 18.89 percent stake in French mobile gaming firm Gameloft to Credit Agricole's corporate and investment bank unit Calyon, and has signed an equity swap deal with the bank, reports AFX . The final sale price for the 13.37 million shares was 6.08 Euro per share, for a total of about $111 million. Under the equity swap agreement, Calyon has 24 months to sell the Gameloft shares on the market. Any changes in the Gameloft share price will then be recorded by Ubisoft, so the deal will only affect Ubisoft's income statement when Calyon sells the Gameloft shares. Ubisoft said the equity swap enables it to stagger the placement of the Gameloft shares so that Ubisoft can keep benefiting from the company's development potential over the next two years . The two companies said they will continue to collaborate, especially when it comes to utilizing Ubisoft's brands on mobile phones. More info in release . Mobile-Ent : The move ends an historic association that began when Gameloft was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of the French company in 1999. Over the years its stake has reduced to just under 20 per cent, although the Guillemot brothers that founded Ubisoft retain a private holding. More on Gameloft's history in this Wikipedia entry . Related Earnings: Gameloft Q1 Revenue Rises 54 Percent Interview: Gameloft's Eric Albert