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The products include a Rahul Dravid cricket game, and a development
alliance with gaming company Mauj. Hutch corporate marketing VP
Harit Nagpal was quoted in a company release saying, "Gaming is
one of the fastest growing mobile applications today. We have seen
this trend internationally, and we are witnessing it now in India.
An average of 1,20,000 mobile games are downloaded every month by
Hutch users currently. This is a phenomenal 50 fold increase from
an average of 2,200 mobile game downloads in February last year.
This growth is expected to increase further with increasing penetration
of GPRS handsets and applications."
By 2006, Datamonitor predicts that wireless gaming will generate
$17.5 billion in annual revenue worldwide. The company also projects
that by 2005, 80 per cent of all mobile users in the US and Western
Europe will play mobile games at least occasionally.
Elaborating on the alliance between Hutch and game development
companies Nagpal added, "Hutch holds over 75 per cent of the downloadable
mobile gaming market in India today. While most of the mobile games
currently have been internationally developed, Indian gaming developers
are working on games with Indian themes. We are working closely
with leading gaming developers like Mauj - to create mobile games
exclusively for Hutch users. We offer over 400 mobile games to our
users currently and are adding two new games to our existing portfolio
daily. We are also launching an exclusive Rahul Dravid cricket game
which will be available to Hutch users only."
The other main games include Prince of Persia, Juan Pablo
Montoya racing, Karpov 3D chess and Top Gun. The
release adds that wireless gaming is already a multi-billion dollar
industry worldwide but has been slow to take off in India until
now. Hutch users can download any of the 400 mobile games using
the Hutch GPRS service. Once downloaded, for Rs 50, the games reside
on the Hutch handset and can be played any number of times. Premium
games such as Prince of Persia are available for Rs 99 per
download.
Hutch also claims to be the only cellular service to offer live
video-replays of sports and entertainment events such as the ongoing
India-Pakistan cricket series by using using MMS. Datamonitor further
stated that mobile gaming in East Asia generated $827 million in
revenues in 2001. US wireless gaming revenues were $436.4 million
in 2001 (Frost & Sullivan).
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