BlackBerry betting on games to boost sales - City Journal - Baurú

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BlackBerry wants to win consumers of mobile games with exclusive

BlackBerry, which abandoned the name of RIM (Research in Motion) in January this year, also wants to leave behind the label “business suit and tie.” The company bet on games to reach consumers beyond the business audience and establish itself as a company multifocused.

“The corporate market is in our DNA. We are known for our professional applications and safety devices,” said Angel Aldana, senior manager of alliances BlackBerry, at an event to the press, which took place in São Paulo on Thursday .

“But games are serious business. Games on mobile devices grows every year. A BlackBerry want to follow this trend, with a good variety of games and powerful smartphones capable of running more complex titles,” says the executive.

According to the company, there are now 230,000 apps in the BlackBerry World, app store business. Of these, about 20% are games and 130 000 are for the new company system, BlackBerry 10.

Aldana says the Canadian company has entered into partnership with several developers to take their devices the main games available in the market like Gameloft (“Asphalt”, “Modern Combat” and “Batman”) Rovio (“Angry Birds”), PopCap (“Plants Vs. Zombies”), Halfbrick (“Jetpack Joyride”) and EA (“FIFA” and “Deadspace”), among others.

According to the executive, the framerate (number of frames per second) of games that run on the BlackBerry platform is greater than on phones with Android and iOS. In practice, a larger number of frames allows games to run more smoothly and without crashes viewed in high-definition televisions smartphone-Z10, for example, has an HDMI input to be connected directly to the television.

But most of the plans have not yet left the drawing board. At the event, Ludivine Lavialle, manager of Gameloft showed the racing game “Asphalt 7″ when other platforms such as iOS and Android have already received the “Asphalt 8″.

Games exclusive, important point for a win important platform in the gaming world, are also rare pieces in the BlackBerry ecosystem.

Crisis

focus on games is one of BlackBerry’s attempts to remain relevant in the smartphone market.

The company recorded at the end of last month, a quarterly loss of nearly $ 1 billion, a few days after announcing that accepted the preliminary offer of $ 4.7 billion to close its capital, a proposal made by the largest shareholder the company, Fairfax Financial.

The sharp drop in the company’s revenue and the accumulated losses have revived fears that the BlackBerry, which has pioneered the smartphone segment, could face collapse. The company plans to cut 4,500 jobs, or more than a third of its workforce.