Semiconductor company MediaTek and Gameloft have joined forces to develop games for phones based on MediaTek’s chipsets, they announced on Friday.
That MediaTek wants more games isn’t very surprising. The availability of games on phones has become hugely important, according to Paolo Pescatore, analyst at CCS Insight.
“It is by far the single biggest category of apps on most stores, and more than half of the revenue is generated by games,” said Pescatore.
For example, MediaTek’s latest chip, the MT6255, will come preloaded with racing game Asphalt 6: Adrenaline as well as trial versions of Block Breaker 3, Assassin’s Creed Revelations and Brain Challenge 3: Think Again! at no extra cost to manufacturers that choose to develop “smart feature phones” based on it.
Beyond that the two companies aren’t providing much detail on what the partnership will result in. But Gameloft has begun to set aside resources that include a dedicated R&D team. Development teams in France, Vietnam and China will all work on games that will run on MediaTek-based phones, according to a statement.
This isn’t the first time MediaTek has partnered to make its chipsets more attractive to phone makers and in extension to consumers in countries such as China and India. The company has also signed deals with Facebook and browser developer Opera Software.
Just like phones manufacturers, the chipset companies have to differentiate themselves from the competition, according to Pescatore.
But there is also a reason why these companies want to work with MediaTek. For Gameloft, it is a foot in the door in parts of the world were its brand and titles are less well known, said Pescatore.