Archive for the ‘Companies & M&A’ Category

EAmobile’s Sales Stagnate

February 3rd, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | 2 Comments »

MocoNews has been tracking down EA Mobile’s performance within EA’s Q4 report. After a conference call, they found out the turnover of EA Mobile was $ 35 million. EA claimed 29% market share in the US versus 15% in the EU. Mobile revenues seem not to really have grown as Q3 was $ 35 million as well. Normally the December period is a peak for mobile companies. In comparison, Gameloft, the much claimed number two, did a

The InfoSpace Acquisition by Twistbox Q&A

February 2nd, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | 1 Comment »

We are back on the subject that surprised a lot of the industry as we have an exclusive Q&A with Michael Steuer. Within Twistbox, Michael is the Vice President of Games and is absolutely the one that can answer the hottest questions we received since we posted the news.

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BBMF Receives $ 20 Million Funding

January 30th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

One of Japans largest mobile content firms called BBMF has received fresh funding to upgrade and prepare their content for 3G and 4G networks. BBMF is known for its mobile comics, games and other content and will receive the funding from CDC Mobile reports Wireless Week. Together with funding BBMF, CDC will gain first rights to sell BBMF content in China.

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Sony and Namco Bandai Team up for PS3 and Mobile

January 24th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Sony and Namco Bandai announced to start a joint development studio for PS3 console development and mobile games. The label for mobile games will be Cellius. No doubt this will mean we will see a lot of Cellius titles pre installed on SonyEricsson handsets and on SonyEricsson portals to keep the revenues in-house as much as possible. A funny detail reveales the domain name Cellius is not owned by any of the parties and is registered in 2000.

Twistbox acquires InfoSpace Games US

January 24th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | 4 Comments »

Rumors stated it for a long time, but finally the acquisition of InfoSpace Games US (also known as the Atlas Mobile Studio) is official. The new parents are Twistbox. The UK studio (IOMO Mobile) is still under negotiation, but that deal is also expected to follow shortly. The studio will report directly to Twistbox Games in Germany. Interesting detail is the fact that infoSpace used to have a German studio as well (Elkware) which closed around the time they lost the Cingular deal.

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Kuju Officially Ends Mobile Games Business

January 23rd, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Kuju has officially announced to close it’s mobile games business that served under the name Kuju Wireless. This is a logical standpoint after Kevin Holloway left Kuju Wireless back in 2005, taking most (branded) mobile games and distribution deals with him to form Finesse Mobile. In an article on MobileIndustry, Kuju boss Ian Baverstock explains about the official termination of Kuju’s mobile adventures.

Codemasters heads toward the stock market

January 21st, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Codemasters has announced plans to float onto the stock market. Even though 2005 showed a loss of more then $ 25 million, 2006 was profitable at $ 2.2 million while turnover hardly increased. Codemasters is or was one of the only big publishers in the UK to stay independent. In 2007, Codemasters hopes to have a turnover of $ 170 million with a 10% profit margin over all divisions including mobile games.

Player X received $ 9.89 million funding

January 18th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Player X announced to have secured a $ 9.89 million funding from Nordic Venture partners, Long Acre Partners and Arts Alliance. Tony Pearce announced the funding will be used to reach the next stage of growth for the company. Player X recently expanded from a mobile game publisher to the mobile TV and Video arena.

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Blade Interactive goes BIG

January 18th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

Blade Interactive (website not working currently) announced the set-up of BIG, a dedicated division for their mobile games. BIG clearly has been set up to convert Blade’s console and PC games into the mobile space. At the same time, they announced to have made a distribution deal on their first snooker game with I-Play. BIG has announced it expects to deliver at least 3 games this year of which World Snooker Championship will be the first and hopes to raise the bar in mobile gaming.

Wmode acquires Provision X from Glu

January 17th, 2007 by Arjan Olsder Posted in Companies & M&A | No Comments »

An interesting purchase happened as Wmode bought the Provision X platform from Glu. Provision X was one of the strategic services developed by MacroSpace many years ago to market their collection of mobile games. MacroSpace, based in the UK, was bought by US based publisher Sorrent in 2004 to be rebranded to Glu a few months later in 2005. After the rebranding, the focuss of Glu was not really at selling platform services and with the upcoming IPO, the sale of it is a good way to clear the company strategy to a pure publisher. For Wmode, the platform means expansion to new carriers on which Provision X operates.