Sony Ericsson's Peter Ahnegard talks mobile games

We all know about Nokia's mobile gaming activities, what with N-Gage and its Nokia Download service. But rival manufacturer Sony Ericsson has been just as active in the mobile gaming space in recent years.

No, it hasn't launched a PlayStation Phone, but the company has made a big push with Java 3D technology across its handset range, while also building strong relationships with mobile game developers and publishers.

Most recently, Sony Ericsson unveiled its F305 gaming phone, complete with an accelerometer inside for motion gaming. We hooked up with the company's games guru Peter Ahnegard for a chat about this, and other developments.

"We've had games on Sony Ericsson phones from day one," he says. "And starting with the W550, we had A and B buttons and horizontal gameplay too. Since then, we've stuck with that concept for a handful of phones every year, and we definitely look to increase that, and see what else we can do to enhance the gaming experience."

The F305 is a good example, being the first in a new range of 'F' handsets from Sony Ericsson (it stands for 'Fun & Entertainment', incidentally).

"It's not just about games," he stresses. "It's got a great camera and a really good music player too. But all the gaming aspects are in there, and it's got the most preloaded games of any phone we've ever made - 11 in total. And of course there's the motion aspects too."

The F305 isn't actually the first Sony Ericsson phone to have an accelerometer inside, but it's the first one where it's been really promoted as a gaming feature, as opposed to the music elements of being able to shake a handset to change tracks.

"We're learning more and more about this," says Ahnegard. "We're seeing some games where you interact with very careful and subtle movements, like Marble Madness type games, through to games where you do a big sweeping motion with your hands, like bowling. Of course, there's probably some genres that it should stay away from..."

Interestingly, Sony Ericsson is focused on making it worth developers and publishers' while to support the F305 and other motion-sensing handsets. That'll partly come from selling as many of these phones as possible, but also by actually selling the games themselves.

This is where PlayNow Arena will come in. It's Sony Ericsson's entertainment portal, due to launch later this year, which will sell games but also music and personalisation content (think wallpapers) directly to mobile users.

The last we heard of it was in January, when the company announced it had signed up the likes of EA Mobile, Gameloft, Glu, THQ, Digital Chocolate and I-play for the portal.

Will it be just another place to buy mobile games though - a rival to the operator portals? Interestingly, Ahnegard says not: "We're definitely seeing that it will have some kind of service layer for games moving forward."

What does that mean - an N-Gage style community wrapped around games?

"It's a real opportunity for us to do more than have just another deck," he says. "We want to do something that brings more value to the games for end consumers. All the major stakeholders in this industry are looking how to evolve mobile gaming, and we're definitely wanting to evaluate those opportunities from our side."

Intriguing stuff, and certainly one to watch. How else might Sony Ericsson look to evolve mobile gaming in the months ahead? The company has been strongly tipped as a partner for Zeemote, with its innovative Zeemote JS1 Bluetooth joystick. Any news on that?

"Personally, I love the Zeemote, and I really hope that this type of technology will happen, because it means you'll have an analog input into games," he says. "Titles like racing games hugely benefit from this kind of input. However, I don't want to speculate if we will ever see this on Sony Ericsson's phones."

Ah well. We still think Sony Ericsson is the most likely launch partner for Zeemote, because of its focus on gaming (and because whenever we've had a Zeemote demoed to us, it's been with a Sony Ericsson handset). We'll just have to wait and see.

In general though, Ahnegard is extremely positive about the current state of mobile gaming. "We're seeing more and more really good games," he says. "In the early days, there were a lot of bad apples being submitted to our channels, but there are far fewer now."

He's also positive about the number of people who are discovering games on their phones, through the titles and demos that Sony Ericsson preloads on handsets.

"We know that 80 per cent of Sony Ericsson handset owners go into the games menu and start a game at least once," he says. "That's a really high number, and it's telling us that we need to make sure they will get a good game experience. That's why the F305 is a big step up for us, with its 11 games."

If you're wondering why we didn't ask Ahnegard about those evergreen PlayStation Phone rumours, well, we did. You'll need to click here to read his response.