O2 breaks into mobile games

Classic arcade games, such as Asteroids and Breakout, will be a regular feature on mobile phones from this Sunday when O2 launches the UK's first commercial Java games service.

The old favourites will debut on 1 September among newer games such as Men in Black II, Racing Fever and Popstar, in an attempt to hold on to customers and encourage them to spend more time on the phone.

The service will be free for the first month. Thereafter, users will be charged £1.50 per game downloaded and will also be charged a small fee for receiving the data.

O2 believes the service could increase its revenues by about £800,000 per month from mid-2003, when it predicts it will have 600,000 UK and European subscribers to the service. Half of the £1.50 charge will go to the games companies supplying the content.

O2 plans to roll out the new service to its customers in Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany in October.