New Mobile Phone Games Console to Compete with Nokia's N-Gage

TTPCom has launched a new mobile game player, code-named B'ngo. The product is a console-style games player as well as a fully-featured mobile phone. The complete product design is available for immediate license.

The product is equipped with both Bluetooth and GPRS; the former allowing interactive multi-player games, up to a maximum of 8 people, in close proximity, whilst the latter allows larger gaming communities spread across the entire network. B'ngo has a colour screen and four dedicated game keys plus a novel rotating key for speed of movement. For console style games B'ngo utilises TTPCom's Wireless Graphics Engine (WGE). WGE software offers a particularly exciting game playing experience because it enables the use of simultaneous key presses in which the user can move and shoot at the same time - a facility not generally available today on other mobile gaming phones.

WGE is shipping in commercial handsets today, and through its WGE activities TTPCom has formed relationships with leading games houses. Over 100 games compatible with WGE are available from developers including Elite, Digital Bridges and ITE. B'ngo is supplied with a selection of embedded games and comes with the facility to download new games over the air, thereby providing network operators with future revenue streams and increased ARPU.

B'ngo is equipped with full mobile phone functionality including tri-band GSM operation, an embedded digital camera, multimedia messaging service (MMS), GPRS class 10, polyphonic ringtones and predictive text entry.

"We're looking at imaginative ways of using our intellectual property, and combining the expertise that we've developed in wireless gaming, with our knowledge of low cost handset designs, has enabled us to create a totally new mobile games player," said Tony Milbourn, Managing Director of TTPCom. "With B'ngo we're providing a gaming experience that is second to none, plus a fully integrated mobile phone featuring the latest and most exciting technology such as digital camera support and MMS."

He continued "For the entry level product we've used all our experience in software development to get the best out of the existing hardware and thereby keep the cost low. Those who've seen the demonstrator are very surprised when they find that we can enable multiple key presses and run sophisticated console style games on an ARM7 processor."

The B'ngo design is fully scalable, from mass market entry level models featuring C++ games running on an ARM7 processor, through to high end products compatible with emerging operating systems, Java(tm) games and additional processing power. With such a wide range of technology options, the B'ngo design offers licensees considerable scope in the development of differentiated products.

B'ngo is smaller in size than existing games consoles and it is expected that the entry level design will retail in the sub US$200 category before operator subsidies."

Posted to the site on 18th February 2003