Sega to Develop Online and Offline Palm Games

Posted By: Ed Wednesday, January 31, 2001 7:55:56 AM

Japan's Sega Corp. said yesterday it would begin creating games for Palm's handheld computers. The game maker provided few details, but said that both online and offline video games will be available for Palm Powered handhelds sometime this year. The online games will be accessible through the MyPalm portal.

Peter Moore, president and COO, Sega of America, said "We feel Palm handhelds are one of the best vehicles for enjoying Sega games anytime, anywhere."

Moore went on to say that the games would likely be geared toward handheld devices with wireless connections, so that consumers can download games either on a pay-per-play basis or via subscription.

"The quality of games has not been up to par recently...,'' Moore said in a conference call. "But once we start applying our development effort to bring characters like Sonic (the Hedgehog) to a Palm, I think you will see the business model open up immediately.''

"Sega games would add an exciting entertainment option for MyPalm portal wireless users and all Palm handheld users worldwide," said Barry Cottle, chief operating officer, Content and Access, for Palm Inc. "We are delighted that Sega plans to add some of the industry's leading video games to our growing lineup of personal and business content and services for Palm handheld aficionados."

Sega made the announcement at the same time that it revealed it would move out of the hardware business and pull the plug on its flagship Dreamcast video game machine.

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I.M. Anonymous @ 1/31/2001 5:22:01 PM #
Sounds great! But the dreamcast is a lost. It's graphics were good and it had online play. I have a PS2 and I like the dreamcasy better. Oh, well, at leat we can get some good games on our pda's!

Games

K.G @ 1/31/2001 5:52:16 PM #
When you said palm, do you mean only palm or the palm OS? And even so, will it take up more than 1MB of visor space, or will it have flash memory?
RE: Games
Ed @ 2/1/2001 8:44:38 AM #
Sega did say that they were going to create games for "Palm Powered" handhelds, which means the full lineup of licensees. Some people have suggested that they might release some Springboard games, which would eliminate the need to have memory space for a large application. This seems like a good idea to me but Sega is keeping mum about their plans at this point. From some of their comments, though, they do seem to be leaning towards making the user wirelessly downloaded the entire game onto their Palm every time they play it. That would certainly limit the size of the games.

One positive note is that there was a games session at PalmSource 2000 and it was standing room only so there is certainly a lot of interest in using the Palm platform for this.

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Graphics...

I.M. Anonymous @ 2/1/2001 2:03:31 AM #
So if Sega is doing video games for Palm, that means that Palm needs to upgrade their video graphics capabilities to handle game graphics or Sega will have to lower their graphic standards. I think the most colors any Palm device can currently handle is 16 colors. Either that, or NVidia better get their act together and start utilizing the technology they aquired from 3dfx, the gigapixel technology that Gigapixel developed to provide 3d graphics capabilities in PDA's. 3d graphics in PDA's....it's not too far off. Now if only the PDA manufacturers will only start wanting to utilize these new technologies. 3dfx couldn't do anything with the technology because the PDA manufacturers didn't think there was a need for it as of yet.

RE: Graphics...
harcker @ 2/1/2001 5:50:35 AM #
Just see what U can play on Gameboy, then U can image what U can play @ Palm...

WOO HOO!

404 @ 2/1/2001 9:40:49 PM #
This is nothing to jump for joy over - As most Sega-made games suck :-) ~ Really, I would like to see what they can do, the more power palm have behind them the better.

I'm happy...I need games!!!mmm....games

I.M. Anonymous @ 4/5/2001 10:42:08 PM #
I think it's a great idea to have sega games for Palm. Sure, sega games aren't always the best, but I'm confident they can get their act together, and any game for Palm they develop will be better than Solitaire or Space Invaders clones.

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