Pre 3 free 3D
Smartphone maker Palm has announced it is offering three free EA games to every Palm Pre user.
After a good start, Palm is struggling to gain market share for its Pre high-end smartphone. Meanwhile, computer game giant EA has seen the writing on the wall and realised it needs to focus a lot more heavily on the mobile market. So it makes sense for the two of them to collaborate in the great mobile Internet land grab.
What remains so be seen, however, is how effective such an initiative will be for either. Considering you have to shell out £40 per month for 18 months or £35 for two years to get the Pre on O2, it's unlikely that a few free games will tip the scales in its favour.
For EA, you have to wonder if the Pre install base is big enough for this initiative to really give it some mobile gaming traction. On the other hand, it's the right size to dip your toe in the water.
The games in question are: The Sims 3, Need for Speed Undercover and Monopoly. You can get hold of them by going to the App Catalog, searching for the games and then just clicking ‘download for free'. If you are a Pre user, you should get your skates on as the offer only runs for this month.
These represent three of the seven ‘3D games' Palm announced at this year's CES. It's not clear precisely what Palm means by 3D in this context. Clearly it's not some kind of Avatar thing requiring special glasses, so we can only assume Palm and EA are merely referring to an improved standard of graphics in general.
