In December 2010, DeNA announced a spectacular deal with Samsung under which the handset maker will pre-install DeNA’s mobile social gaming platform Mobage on its Android phones.
Today, Japanese news site Keitai Watch has pictures that show how Mobage will be presented to end users of Samsung phones in the future.
It looks like the cooperation isn’t going as deep as previously expected.
On the pictures you can see a Galaxy S II: when the user chooses the “Game Hub” option on the menu of the phone, the screen you see below appears (“powered by Mobage” isn’t as powerful as just naming the gaming function as a whole “Mobage”):
What’s more, Mobage will have to share the real estate on the screen with other mobile game providers, for example with titles coming from France’s Gameloft (see below). We Rule and We City are made by DeNA’s US company ngmoco.
Samsung explains that there will be two sections under Game Hub:
- social games (free to play, monetized via sales of virtual items)
- premium games (paid titles offering more “depth” in terms of gameplay)
The Galaxy S II will be the first Samsung phone with Mobage on board, but again, it looks like DeNA’s win here isn’t as big as previously thought.
