In October, Mobage Town operator, DeNA, announced that they would be acquiring iPhone developer, Ngmoco and co-developing a social network for mobiles with them. Today, they revealed that they’re naming this service simply “Mobage.”
In Japan, Mobage Town is a mobile phone-based service for free-to-play games with pay-to-purchase items, and is home to several notable mobile games such as Little King’s Story, Monster Hunter Diary Mobile, Persona 3 Social, Shenmue Town and an upcoming port of Muramasa: The Demon Blade.
DeNA have shared a private beta of their Open Mobage Smartphone development kits with 50 developers globally, including well-known companies like Hudson, Square Enix and Take-Two, which will allow them to monetize the Mobage service, as well as Ngmoco’s Plus+ social-networking platform.
Complementing the devkit will be Ngmoco’s “ngCore” technology, which will allow publishers to deploy Mobage titles across several platforms, such as iPhone, iPod, Android and even the web, with what DeNA claim will be minimum modifications.
Currently, Samsung are working with DeNA to offer Mobage on their Android devices globally in several months, which DeNA believe will help accelerate the service’s global growth.
