Nokia And Zynga Integrates Both Mobile And Gaming – Zynga Games Coming To Nokia Asha Touch Phones

By Aldrin Loyola on August 31, 2012 in Nokia, Zynga

The Nokia Asha Series was unveiled back in June, and was recently launched in the markets after the announcement of release. The Nokia Asha Touch Series – Asha 305, Asha 306, and Asha 311 – were all intended to be directed at emerging markets, so don’t get too excited and don’t expect a lot of intricate hardware.

On the other hand, customers who purchased one of the featured phones in the Asha Touch Series have already found out that they have the pleasure to enjoy title from major games, including EA, Gameloft and Rovio. In addition to this gaming updates, Nokia announced that 20 additional games from NAMCO BANDAI are also available for Asha Touch phones.

According to the Finnish phone maker’s blog post, Zynga Games “Draw Something” and “Zynga Poker” will be available on Nokia’s Asha Touch range of phones later this year. Both games will be categorized as free downloads from The Nokia Store and will be available for Nokia Asha 305, Asha 306, and Asha 311.

With all these announcement made by Nokia, the prime factor behind this is the company’s deal with Zynga in June.

As mentioned earlier, Asha Touch users can enjoy games from developers such as EA, Gameloft, and Rovio. And there are more things the mobile company along with its new gaming platform can offer. Prior to the announcement of the phone series, Nokia said that titles such as Tetris, Bejeweled, Need for Speed: The Run and FIFA 12 would be available.

The gaming factor comes from the phones capacity to handle such applications. All three Asha Touch phones are equipped with a 1GHz single-core processor and run Nokia’s S40 UI. These phones also pack 10MB of internal memory, 64MB of ROM and 32MB of RAM. You see, not the kind of hardware you expect from a phone but it still bring the game face on!

Users can add a few changes to the phone’s memory capacity by expanding the storage up to 32GB via the microSD card. And it is worth the mentioning that the handsets are shipped with a built-in 2GB microSD card.

Although they come with touchscreen displays, the quality of the screens is a bit of a letdown given the fact they come with resistive touch display and support only 56k colors.

The drive from purely mobile to more integration of both mobile and gaming has started to affect the middle-range phone market. Nokia isn’t the only company banking on games to increase customer preference and drive people to buy its phones. In the first month of the second quarter in 2012, semiconductor company MediaTek and Gameloft join forces to develop games on phones that are based on MediaTek chipsets.

Bryan Biniak, Nokia’s Vice-President & General Manager of Global Partnering & Application Development said, “It’s great to expand our offering of Zynga games to deliver more blockbuster titles across our portfolio of mobile devices, giving consumers great choice and tremendous value. With premium design, powerful hardware and outstanding gaming capabilities, we’re redefining what consumers expect from today’s feature phone experience.”

What are your thoughts on this move? Will it increase Nokia’s sales in the end of the year? It’s a smart move to divert people’s attention on the Finnish mobile company. Don’t forget to leave your opinions.