Sega games to play on Qualcomm mobiles

By Staff and reports

TOKYO, Japan -- Japanese video game publisher Sega said Wednesday it would develop video games for Qualcomm-powered mobile phones in the U.S. market.

Qualcomm's mobile platform BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) enables the delivery of interactive, downloadable content to third-generation (3G) cellular phones.

The deal is Sega's third foray into the U.S. handheld market.

Earlier this year the game publisher pulled the plug on its loss-making Dreamcast game console business to focus on developing games.

Multi-platform gaming

Sega said it would have games ready for BREW-compatible handsets by December.

The Japanese game publisher also has announced deals to put its games on Palm OS and PocketPC handhelds, though none of those games are available yet.

Sega already provides games for three different cell phone platforms in Japan.

Qualcomm said Korea Telecom Freetel would be the first carrier in the world to run a commercial trial of BREW services, with 5,000 customers expected to take part. The full Korean service will roll out in November, the company said.

In the United States, cellular carriers like Verizon Communications subsidiary Verizon Wireless and Alltel have said they will support BREW on their networks.

Japan's Sega, as it morphs into a video game software developer, forecasts a return to profit in the business year to next March.

For the year to next March, Sega said it would get back into the black with a net profit of $17.2 million, on sales of $1.5 billion.

Reuters contributed to this report.