Sony Ericsson's App Store Up and Running

Japanese-Swedish mobile phone maker Sony Ericsson has launched its application store into the wild. Although the company introduced the storefront a while ago, it is only now that users can access it and download games and applications from there. The new software portal can be accessed by users in 17 countries at the moment, namely Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, while other countries should be added to the list in the near future.

The app store, called PlayNow arena, follows the latest trend on the market, which drove a wide range of mobile phone makers, carriers and other companies towards launching their own branded application portals online. Although it might sound hilarious, the launch of Sony Ericsson's software portal is the piece of information that matters the most, for other details are not as important as one might think. To be more precise, the storefront seems to have only 15 applications available for download/purchase at the moment, out of which only 2 are free, while the rest cost $6.50 (GBP 4.00). That is the UK store we are talking about.

Even so, the PlayNow arena includes 6 different sections, namely Music, Applications, Games, Themes, Wallpapers and Ringtones. The Games section, we must admit, comes with a few more items, which is rather great for users, although only three of them seem to be available for a free download. The rest of the titles available will run for the same $6.50 (GBP 4.00) as the applications. For what it's worth, even this small number of items available on the portal seems to be a good start, at least as long as more applications and games will be added in the future, for these are the solutions that users are interested in the most.

Although some of the news reports on PlayNow arena's launch seem to be rather harsh, we should take a look at a few of the stores already available online, and which managed to attract a lot of users on their side. Palm's App Catalog, for example, was launched with only a handful of applications, 18 if we're not mistaken, and still managed to reach 1 million downloads in about three weeks. Even if the offer on Sony Ericsson's portal might seem limited, enthusiasts will certainly be attracted to the store, and it might prove successful in the end. You can take a look at the store here.