14 DAY TRIAL // Sunnyvale-based mobile phone maker Palm announced on Thursday that its webOS mobile platform has just received a series of graphics-intensive game titles via the App Catalog. The new titles come from EA Mobile (a division of Electronic Arts Inc.), Gameloft, Glu Mobile, and Laminar Research, and are being showcased at the International 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.
“We are very excited about the potential of webOS as a platform for mobile 3D gaming,” said Katie Mitic, senior vice president, Product Marketing, Palm, Inc. “This is a key application category, and we've worked closely with some of the leading game developers to deliver a great game experience for our customers.”
According to Palm, developers who announced the new titles have had access to the company's webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK), a solution meant to extend the webOS Software Development Kit (SDK) with new tools, documentation and APIs. The new tools offer developers the possibility to include C and C++ code into their webOS applications, delivering new functionality, such as 3D gaming. The company plans on delivering a public beta version of the webOS PDK in March.
The list of new 3D games that was introduced in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre users includes: Need for Speed Undercover (EA Mobile) The Sims 3 (EA Mobile) MONOPOLY (EA Mobile) Asphalt 5: Elite Racing (Gameloft) Let's Golf! (Gameloft) Glyder 2 (Glu Mobile) X-Plane (Laminar Research)
At the same time, five other games came to the storefront, including EA Mobile's Tetris, Sudoku, and SCRABBLE, as well as Gameloft's The Oregon Trail and Brain Challenge. “Recent improvements to Palm webOS represent major advancements in enabling world-class mobile gaming,” said Travis Boatman, vice president of Worldwide Studios for EA Mobile. “These innovations have allowed us to quickly bring our best IP to the platform.”
In addition to the new games, Palm also revealed that the App Catalog passed the 1,000 applications mark, and that webOS users have now the possibility to get OTA updates on their devices in a much easier manner. Moreover, the company said that it planned on delivering new features to its users in the near future, such as video recording, editing and sharing capabilities. The new functionality will come both to Palm Pre and Palm Pixi phones over the air in the near future. Adobe's Flash Player 10.1 plug-in is yet another new feature that will soon come to the App Catalog, Palm stated.