Shanda and Motorola Launch Exclusive Mobile Content
'World of Legend' and 'Magical Land' to be brought to mobile gaming handsets
Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ:SNDA) , a leading interactive entertainment media company, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE:MOT) , a global leader in wireless communications, today announced an agreement designed to improve the way games are experienced and enjoyed on mobile devices in China. According to the agreement, Motorola will launch exclusive mobile versions of Shanda's popular World of Legend and Magical Land online role playing games on specially customized Motorola E680g handsets.
"The cooperation with Motorola will further expand Shanda's user base from a PC to a mobile platform, giving users more flexible choices to access our leading game content still supported by our superior unified operating system," stated Mr. Tang Jun, President of Shanda. "We will continue to provide gamers with reliable, high-quality service combined with a fun and entertaining gaming experience. We are pleased to be partnering with Motorola and look forward to a successful partnership."
Dressed as a World of Legend character and standing in front of larger-than-life pictures of Motorola products and World of Legend and Magical Land characters, Ian Chapman-Banks, Motorola's North Asia general manager of marketing and business development for mobile devices, expressed his delight at the partnership, saying, "Motorola is dedicated to providing China's gamers with a superior mobile gaming experience, and that has to include the very best in content. Shanda's World of Legend and Magical Land are perhaps the most popular games this country has ever seen, and it is only fitting that they make their mobile debut with Motorola."
Both Motorola and Shanda were quick to point out that the two online mobile games are not merely new versions or extensions of the PC games. Instead, they can run in conjunction with PCs and interact, with users being able to transfer points, weapons, and other assets between their handsets and their PCs. World of Legend and Magical Land will be available exclusively for download on MIDC (Monternet's "My E680g Zone") and CMCC MagicBox (China Mobile's platform for game downloads) for a period of six months. Related content like sounds, wallpapers and screensavers can be downloaded exclusively from MIDC.
In addition to the games announcement, the two companies announced a series of co-branding initiatives, including preloaded Shanda content on Motorola's new E680g gaming handsets, promotion of the handset within the PC versions of World of Legend and Magical Land, and cross-brand packaging. Shanda will make its on-line, off-line and Internet Cafe resources available to Motorola, as well as share Shanda's registered user database for promotional purposes.
About Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd.
Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ:SNDA) is a leading interactive entertainment media company in China. Shanda offers a portfolio of diversified entertainment content including some of the most popular massively multi-player and casual online games in China, along with online chess and board games, a network PC game platform and a variety of cartoons, literature works and music. Shanda's interactive entertainment platform attracts a large and loyal user base. Each user can interact with thousands of others and enjoy the interactive entertainment content that Shanda provides. Interaction enriches your life. For more information about Shanda, please visit http://www.snda.com/
About Motorola
Motorola is known around the world for innovation and leadership in wireless and broadband communications. Inspired by our vision of Seamless Mobility, the people of Motorola are committed to helping you get and stay connected simply and seamlessly to the people, information, and entertainment that you want and need. We do this by designing and delivering "must have" products, "must do" experiences and powerful networks -- along with a full complement of support services. A Fortune 100 company with global presence and impact, Motorola had sales of US $35.3 billion in 2005. For more information about our company, our people and our innovations, please visit www.motorola.com
Safe Harbor Statement
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that are based on current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections about the companies and the industry. All statements other than statements of historical fact in this announcement are forward-looking statements, including but not limited to the statement regarding design features and inter-operability between the mobile versions of the games with the respective PC versions and user experience of the games. These forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties. Although the companies believe that their expectations expressed in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they cannot assure you that their expectations will turn out to be correct. Important risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to be materially different from expectations include but not limited to the risk that the mobile versions of the games are not well received by users, that Shanda is unable to develop mobile versions of the games that can be operated in conjunction with the respective PC versions or the proposed cooperation is otherwise not successfully executed and the risks set forth in Shanda's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchanges Commission, including Shanda's annual report on Form 20-F.
Source: Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd.
