3GSM: I-play to introduce new content bundles

I-play is to introduce a new series of entertainment bundles in a bid to marry games with its new ventures in the mobile TV market.

The company will use licensed brands such as The Fast and the Furious and 24 to package content together and sell a collection of games, movie footage, ringtones and wallpapers.

"We'll be rolling out the concept of mobile entertainment bundles using 2D and 3D games, wallpapers, ringtones and streaming video," said CEO David Gosen, speaking exclusively to MobileIndustry.biz at 3GSM in Barcelona.

"We've already got the first example of that - we're working with Sprint on the 24 TV license to do ringtones, wallpapers, the game and other bits of content. There's no TV footage in the 24 bundle, but we will be doing it with The Fast and the Furious later this year," he revealed.

I-play recently unveiled a partnership with Universal Pictures to bring clips from classic movies to mobile users, and the firm has plans with other partners, to be be revealed in the coming months.

"We'll be working with more licensors, we'll be potentially generating our own content, we'll be looking at a number of areas because we think it's important to become a mobile entertainment company rather than a pure mobile gaming company," said Gosen.

The movie clips and the entertainment bundles will launch first in North America, before being introduced to the European market.

However, I-play has no intention of shifting too far away from the gaming market, instead it intends to use video and TV footage to help capture users and introduce them to mobile gaming products.

"It builds on what we've learnt from the gaming business - bitesize chunks of entertainment - that's how people consume media on mobiles," commented Gosen.

"Mobile gaming will always be the majority part of our business, and we have a successful and robust business. But we see real opportunity to expand into streaming video and then link that back into games."