Round-Up: EA Mobile, Buena Vista/D3, James Bond Returns

Author: by Nich Maragos, Simon Carless

Today's round-up includes news of EA mobile's 2005 and 2006 line-up, a deal to distribute Buena Vista's games in Japan, as well as the official announcement of the latest James Bond video game. - Electronic Arts has announced eight of 20 intended mobile phone games to be released during 2005 and 2006. The majority are adaptations of EA's console and PC titles, such as Madden NFL 2006, The Sims 2, Need for Speed Underground 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006, and FIFA Football 2006, all of which sport 3D graphics. The company's 2D lineup is adapted from some of the more popular web games from EA's Pogo.com: Poppit!, Turbo 21, and Tri Peaks Solitaire. The eight games will debut at E3 2005 in EA's booth. - Buena Vista Games, the videogame division of Disney, and D3 Publisher, famed for their Simple 2000 line of Japanese budget software, have signed an agreement for D3 to publish BVG's games in Japan. The first titles D3 will handle under the agreement are The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for multiple platforms; Chicken Little on multiple platforms; Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas on Game Boy Advance; Kim Possible on GBA; and Lilo & Stitch on GBA. The games will be released in Japan with tie-in ads featured on Disney TV programming. - Electronic Arts has officially announced its latest James Bond-licensed video game, the EA Redwood Shores-developed From Russia With Love. The third-person action game will ship this Fall for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube, and Sir Sean Connery, appearing in his first-ever video game, has lent his voice and likeness to the project, which is based on the 1963 movie starring Connery as Bond. Sir Sean commented with relation to this announcement: "As an artist, I see this as another way to explore the creative process. Video games are an extremely popular form of entertainment today, and I am looking forward to seeing how it all fits together." - Also updated today: product news involving the latest version of SecurePlay's anti-cheating engine and a release date for the latest Bryce landscaping package, as well as newly updated jobs from Art Institute of California - San Francisco, Gameloft, Obsidian Entertainment, Pandemic Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment, and Webzen.