Japanese firm Eitarosoft has revealed that its Lamity mobile virtual world is being preloaded on several handsets being sold by operator NTT DoCoMo. They include phones from Sony, Sharp and NEC that are part of DoCoMo's 906i series. The world is also being ported to Google's Android operating system.
The DoCoMo deal is a good one for Eitarosoft, in terms of building a userbase fast for the Java-based virtual world, which was unveiled earlier this year. Individual locations within the world can host up to 400 users at once - people tend to compare this with Second Life, although given that they’re two very different worlds, that’s perhaps a bit of a stretch.
But the Android element is intriguing, too. The first handsets shipping with Google’s mobile OS won’t be out until the end of this year at the earliest, but Eitarosoft clearly sees the platform as having benefits for virtual worlds. It’ll be interesting to what new features are added to the Android version. GPS has been a big factor in many Android apps announced so far, so could that have a place for a virtual world like Lamity - allowing users to socialise with other users in their region?
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