Games@Large

Deuromedia is participating in the European Union’s Sixth Framework Program (FP6) Games@Large. The initiative will enable consumer electronics devices to be video game ready. Thus, European consumer electronics companies will be capable to become competitive on the video gaming market.

The Games@Large platform will create technologies allowing the video games to be deployed to consumer electronics that were not originally designed to run video games. This initiative will enable consumers to play video games at any location devices like set-top boxes, next-generation TVs, media extenders and handheld devices.

The consortium is composed of 15 global organizations, with prestigious companies like Philips Electronics, Atmel, Portugal Telecom, Fraunhofer Institute and Exent Technologies as project coordinator. The Games@Large initiative will span four years of research, development and implementation of platform enablement game technologies, with an investment of €16M.

According to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report referred by Exent, “the overall video game market is expected to reach $46 billion in 2010 from $27 billion in 2005”. “With the ‘digital living room’ on the rise, Games@Large and its platform enablement innovation will open new areas of economic opportunities in the game and entertainment market for companies of several areas. Consumer electronic manufacturers will be able to launch significantly cheaper, as compared to game consoles, devices to serve as game platforms, and to play a significant role in this arena. In addition, service providers and game publishers can use the technology to create new channels for end users to access game titles.” (Exent Technologies press release, San Francisco, November 2006).

Consortium members:

• Exent Technologies Ltd, Israel
• Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Foerderung der angewandten Forschung e.V, Germany;
• Philips Electronics Nederland B.V, The Netherlands;
• Philips Consumer Electronics B.V, The Netherlands;
• VTT Technical Research Centre, Finland;
• Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece;
• Deuromedia Technologies Entwicklungs und Vertriebs GmbH, Austria;
• ATMEL Hellas S.A, Greece;
• University of Genoa, Italy;
• Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands;
• Goldsmiths College, UK;
• Amal Me’ever U’me’al, Israel;
• Portugal Telecom Inovacao, Portugal;
• Mentelecale Sr , Italy;
• GHM Gesthotel Danshir EURL, France

About the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP6)

The EU Framework Programme 6 (FP6) bases its activity on two principal directions: Strengthening the scientific and technological bases of industry and encouraging its international competitiveness while promoting research activities in support of other EU policies. FP6 is focused on a number of thematic priorities, including Information Society Technologies.