CES 2010: Palm introduces 3D games for webOS

Palm announced the addition of seven new 3D game titles to its Palm App Catalog which at present offers Palm users over 1000 applications. Developers wrote the games using the Palm webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK), which extends the Palm webOS Software Development Kit (SDK) with a set of tools, documentation and APIs that let developers write plug-ins for their webOS applications.

3D gaming has landed on the Palm webOS platform. Palm, introduced several graphics-intensive game titles for webOS, from game developers EA Mobile, a division of Electronic Arts: Gameloft: Glu Mobile: and Laminar Research. Demonstrated at Palm’s CES event, the games are available in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers.

‚We are very excited about the potential of webOS as a platform for mobile 3D gaming,‚ said Katie Mitic, senior vice president for product marketing at Palm. ‚This is a key application category, and we’ve worked closely with some game developers to deliver a great game experience for our customers.‚

The seven 3D games introduced in the Palm App Catalog for Palm Pre customers include:

Five other mobile games were also introduced: EA Mobile’s Tetris, Sudoku, and Scrabble, and 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.‚

The developers who introduced the titles have had early access to the Palm webOS Plug-in Development Kit (PDK), which extends the Palm webOS Software Development Kit (SDK) with a set of tools, documentation and APIs that let developers write plug-ins for their webOS applications. The PDK lets developers easily integrate C and C++ code into their webOS applications, enabling new functionality, including immersive 3D games. A public beta version of the webOS PDK is scheduled to be available to all developers in March.

‚The performance of the platform allowed us to create these great games in a limited timeframe,‚ said Baudouin Corman, vice president of publishing at Gameloft.

‚webOS allows us to deliver an outstanding gaming experience, and we look forward to bringing our best games to Palm customers worldwide. We expect the plug-in model to play an important role in the evolution of the webOS platform, just as plug-ins have with web browsers,‚ said Mitic. ‚And with this plug-in, we are making it super-simple for developers to bring the hottest games to webOS.‚

The Palm App Catalog currently offers more than 1,000 webOS applications for download. Palm’s unique over-the-air model also makes it easy for customers to get webOS updates and new features delivered directly to their phones. For example, at CES, Palm announced that video recording, editing and sharing capabilities will soon be available for users of webOS phones. This new video capability will be delivered automatically to current and future Palm Pre and Palm Pixi products via an over-the-air update.

Palm also demonstrated Flash content in the browser on a Palm Pre and expects a free Adobe Flash Player 10.1 plug-in to be posted to the Palm App Catalog in the coming months. Palm expects webOS to be one of the first mobile platforms to support the full Flash Player in the web browser.

email this to a friend tt tt printer friendly version

“,”body-href”:””}]