Namco announced the world’s first international cross-network operator mobile games tournament. The tournament is open to every i-mode phone owner on all of the mobile networks in Europe where Namco offers its PAC-MANTMARCADE site. The tournament is based around Namco’s brand-new high-score version of PAC-MAN, which allows users to upload their highest scores from the mobile version of PAC-MAN to compare it with other users, locally and internationally.
NaviTime Japan have announced that their overseas map retrieval service will be available as of 1 August in the UK, France, Germany and the US. Running on the i-Mode and v-Live menus, Japanese tourists will be able to determine the best guided directions from a car, a subway or on a walking route. The firm said the service, offering event information such as sports, theater and festivals along with hotel info in the target travel destination, allows users to confirm sightseeing, restaurant and store locations from their local maps.
East Japan Railway Company (JR East), NTT DoCoMo, Inc. (DoCoMo) and NTT DATA Corporation (NTT DATA) announced today that they have agreed to jointly promote JR East’s Suica® e-money service. Through this joint venture, JR East aims to expand the number of retail shops and companies accepting Suica e-money, which will make it more convenient and attract more users. For DoCoMo, the expansion of the Suica e-money service will encourage use of its “Osaifu-Keitai” mobile phones equipped with contactless IC cards.
Collaboration Delivers Rapid Entry to Global i-mode Market for QUALCOMM’s OEM Partners. QUALCOMM Incorporated, pioneer and innovator of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) and other cutting-edge wireless technologies and ACCESS Co., Ltd., a global provider of mobile content delivery and Internet access technologies, today announced that ACCESS’ i-mode Global Profile, a profile in ACCESS’ NetFront™ Mobile Client Suite, will be supported on QUALCOMM’s Mobile Station Modem™ (MSM™) chipset solutions. The availability of ACCESS’ i-mode Global Profile solution on select MSM chipsets provides device manufacturers with accelerated entry into the global i-mode market and ensures a wide variety of next-generation devices for i-mode operators.
According to a Telstra insider, the take-up of iMode, which allows customers to surf the internet on a customised handset, has been far from overwhelming. Telstra has signed up less than 50,000 customers to date, with one insider putting subscriber numbers at closer to 30,000. Meanwhile, Vodafone Live, has gathered more than 400,000 Australian customers since April 2003. A Telstra spokesman said it was important to remember that while iMode had had a “soft” launch in November, it was yet to be offered by Telstra’s entire dealer network.
The recently released Yankee Group report, “Under the Yankee Group Microscope: NTT DoCoMo’s Experience with Flash Lite,” emphasizes how Flash has become a de facto standard in Japan. According to the report, “Sophisticated information services using Flash Lite have characterized the first wave of innovation. More than 60% of the 4,400 official i-mode sites are based on Flash Lite.” WWJ subscribers log in for access to the full report in PDF.
