Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)

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Leading Game Publishers and Developers Endorse QUALCOMM and ATI's New Wireless 3D Gaming Collaboration


QUALCOMM Incorporated, pioneer and world leader of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) digital wireless technology, and ATI Technologies Inc., the global leader for mobile graphics, today announced significant publisher and developer support for their next generation wireless 3D gaming platform, announced earlier this week. Publishers and developers will be able to take advantage of revenue opportunities by creating 3D games for QUALCOMM's BREW solution and ATI's 3D graphics technology to enhance wireless content and bring their games to the next level.
As part of the collaboration announced earlier this week, QUALCOMM's industry-leading Mobile Station Modem (MSM) baseband solutions will be combined with ATI's highly optimized IMAGEON architecture to provide a fully featured, high-performance 3D gaming solution for 3G CDMA2000® and WCDMA devices. QUALCOMM will license the IMAGEON technology for its next-generation MSM7xxx family of chipsets, and will also enable ATI to interface IMAGEON ASICs to QUALCOMM's MSM6xxx chipsets -- providing device manufacturers using QUALCOMM's chipsets with a fully tested 3D multimedia hardware solution.

"The wireless realm represents an opportunity to expand and extend high- quality gaming experiences," said Tim Walsh, president of THQ Wireless. "The future of mobile gaming is in good hands with QUALCOMM and ATI teaming up to provide advanced 3D mobile entertainment solutions."

"Namco America is dedicated to bringing Namco content to the mobile market in North America. We have been extremely successful in developing wireless games with the BREW solution to date and that is one of the reasons why this announcement is so exciting," said Kenji Hisatsune, EVP & COO of Namco America Inc. "With ATI added to the mix and QUALCOMM's advancements on the chipset side, we now have access to some of the top business and technical solutions for wireless game development in a single unified offering. This is an important milestone for game publishers and developers."

"3D is a great advance for mobile content. It dramatically changes the mobile game experience and we commend QUALCOMM and ATI for bringing this solution to market," said Larry Shapiro, EVP of business development and operations, Walt Disney Internet Group.

"By integrating 3D gaming technology at the chipset level and offering the highest level of support to developers via the BREW system, QUALCOMM and ATI are raising the bar on wireless game development to new heights of innovation," said Matt Sivertson, director of international operations, Sony Online Entertainment. "We look forward to taking full advantage of this new technology to raise the standard of our mobile games, close to that of our popular console and PC games."

"The advent of accelerated graphics hardware in portable devices marks the beginning of a truly exciting time for gaming and graphical applications," said Peter Freese, core technology director, NCsoft. "It dramatically expands the market for graphical entertainment, personal and business applications."

"Sega was an early adopter of wireless gaming and has seen it become a great business," said Yuki Kobayashi, director of mobile, Sega of America. "We are pleased to see ATI bringing 3D graphic technology to this market as it will allow the market to mature on a worldwide basis."

"Leveraging 3D graphics has been a central pillar of Bandai's wireless gaming strategy to date, and this announcement allows us to continue on this path to create increasingly rich mobile games," said Masao Ohata, vice president of Network Entertainment for Bandai America Incorporated. "The combination of QUALCOMM's MSM chipsets, ATI's leading-edge graphics acceleration technology and the BREW system promises an exciting future for mobile gaming and entertainment."

"The announcement of ATI and QUALCOMM working together to advance 3D gaming technology at the hardware level is a very key event in the wireless gaming industry," said John Greiner, president, Hudson Entertainment. "This will rapidly accelerate the proliferation of 3D graphics and we're looking forward to evolving both our existing BREW titles to 3D as well as produce all new content."

"This is a significant announcement from a business and technology standpoint, as it will enable us to leverage our premium entertainment brands in an entirely new level of visual clarity across our wireless games portfolio," said Rio Caraeff, vice president of wireless services for Sony Pictures Digital Networks. "The BREW platform has been a very successful business for us, and this exciting announcement will enable this trend to continue with the development of higher quality 3D titles for consumers to enjoy."

"3D is one of the next frontiers for wireless game development and we are pleased that ATI's 3D technology is coming to QUALCOMM's BREW solution," said Mitch Lasky, CEO of global wireless publisher JAMDAT Mobile Inc.

"ATI's IMAGEON solution brings mobile gaming to a level at which the product of mainstream game development can be brought to the wireless consumer," said Lincoln Wallen, vice president of RenderWare Mobile for leading middleware supplier Criterion Software. "This collaboration between ATI and QUALCOMM will serve to excite the CDMA market and stimulate the demand for premium game content."

QUALCOMM's BREW system provides products and services that connect the mobile marketplace value chain, which includes application developers, publishers, content providers, device manufacturers, operators and consumers.

Publishers and developers worldwide are generating revenue from BREW-based applications and content, and 24 manufacturers have offered more than 120 BREW-enabled device models to consumers. BREW is successfully enabling the commercial wireless data services of many very successful operators, including Verizon Wireless, ALLTEL, Cellular One, MetroPCS, Midwest Wireless and U.S. Cellular in the United States, China Unicom, KDDI in Japan, KTF in South Korea, Hutch in Thailand, Telstra in Australia, VIVO in Brazil, BellSouth Chile, BellSouth Colombia, BellSouth Ecuador, BellSouth Guatemala, BellSouth Panama, BellSouth Peru, Telefonica Moviles in Peru, Movicom in Argentina, Telcel and Movilnet in Venezuela, Verizon Dominican Republic, Verizon Wireless Puerto Rico and Pelephone in Israel.

http://www.gameinfowire.com/news.asp?nid=4171