DeNA, a Japanese mobile firm with 15 million customers in Japan have purchased 20% of the OpenFeint platform in a multi-million dollar deal, and will be actively promoting the platform to Japanese game companies. Hudson have already agreed to use OpenFeint for its games and we should hopefully be seeing a Bomberman game with integration sometime this Christmas.
The first major news from Aurora Feint, the owner of OpenFeint, is the launch of OpenFeint 2.4 along with OpenFeint Gold, both of which will enhance the features of previous services and create a new gaming experience. Version 2.4 has two key features of interest:
- In App Messaging System
- Micro Transactions – Aurora Feint has been working on a free to play MMORPG which uses in app purchasing, the aim of making users purchase further parts of games to unlock achievements
OpenFeint Gold is a new promotion that will highlight iPhone games of the best quality and make excellent use of the OpenFeint system. A new game will be picked each month and will be heavily promoted through all Aurora Feint services. The bar has been set high with Fieldrunners being the first game to take advantage of OpenFeint 2.4.
Fieldrunners will be updated at some point in November to utilize OpenFeint Gold. This will be a free upgrade to all current customers, and will include in-app purchases for new maps, similar to those released on the PSP.
Im not a big fan of in-app purchasing, but for Fieldrunners I may well be tempted. Check it out on the [App Store] if you havn’t already. As soon as a list of achievements is avaliable they will be posted.
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