The strategic value of gamers isn’t lost on Palm, which is struggling to establish itself in the smartphone market.
Games are the most popular applications on both the iPhone and Google Android phones, and so now Palm is making its own push to get more games on its smartphones.
Last week, Palm showed off its Plug-in Developer Kit for its WebOS operating system that will enable game developers to easily port games that are made for other smartphones to the Palm platform.
Joe Hayashi, vice president of platform and tools at Palm, said there are lots of games already among the 2,000 or so apps on the Palm Pixi and Pre phones. That’s far short of the 150,000 plus apps on the iPhone, but Palm’s app store didn’t really open until January. So far, more than 20 games have taken advantage of the PDK. The result is visually rich entertainment for users.
Hayashi said that Epic Games has modified its Unreal Engine 3 so that it can run on the WebOS. That means the company will be able to go after high-quality 3D games for its phones, which are fairly powerful computers in their own right.
Entertainment is a popular category on the Pre and Pixi phones already, and games are a cool attraction for the platform. Check out our video with Hayashi.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KwqI7Vkhf8&w=425&h=344]