Google's Game Plan Comes Together With Help From Sony Ericsson

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Earlier this week, Google held a ThinkGaming conference for industry analysts and marketing folks, and while many of the specific strategies discussed there haven't been disclosed to the public yet, it's clear that Google is serious about making its mark in the social, casual, and mobile gaming spaces.

Besides Google's recent partnership with social-game maker Zynga, SearchBlog notes Google's other gaming-related acquisitions to-date: Social networking app-maker, Slide, virtual currency purveyor, Jambool, and the in-game ad platform, Adscape, are all now owned by Google. The company is expected to begin revealing more information about their overall gaming platform strategy over the next few months.

Google's other gaming related initiatives include the impending Google Chrome Web Store, an "analog of the iOS App Store and Android Market for Web browsers," which investment firm, Lazard Capital, believes will include gaming as a core strategic component. Google also hopes that its support of both Flash and HTML5 for Chrome will also give its social gaming initiatives a leg-up over other non-Android mobile devices. SearchBlog's Laurie Sullivan speculates that it's likely the strategy will permeate Google's PC and mobile gaming initiatives, as well as the upcoming GoogleTV service.

According to a separate report on Engadget, Sony Ericsson is "actively and heavily developing a brand new gaming platform, ecosystem, and device" similar to the PSP Go. The described device is a landscape slider phone, with game controls where you'd normally find a keyboard on similar devices. Graphically, games on the device will reportedly have similar fidelity to "PSP" or "PSX" games. Engadget suggests that games like God of War, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and LittleBigPlanet are suggested as possible software offerings for the device, which may carry both PlayStation and Xperia branding.

Engadget speculates that the new device could be released as early as October of this year, but specific details have yet to be confirmed.

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From The Chatty
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    August 12, 2010 1:52 PM

    Just give me my Popcap games, Google. You could have people killed and no one would question it, so why have you not made them give me Peggle?

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