Mobile game developer Gameloft is expanding the number of things that will play its games to include connected Panasonic TVs, without the aid of consoles or anything else.
The developer announced the partnership with Panasonic at CES 2011 in Las Vegas and included details on its blog. The agreement will have Gameloft releasing several games with 3D graphics directly for Panasonic’s VIERA line of connected HDTVs.
Games mentioned in the lineup already include the FPS N.O.V.A.: Near Orbital Vanguard Alliance, UNO and Asphalt 5. All are games that currently appear on Apple’s iPhone and iPad, as well as Google’s Android platform for smartphones and tablets. Sounds like the VIERA setup will work pretty much the same way: you’ll access some kind of app store through your Panasonic TV, purchase and download apps through the interface, and download them straight to the TV to play.
Gameloft does a pretty good job with small-scale mobile games like N.O.V.A. 2, and many of those games come pretty close to the kinds of things you’d find on PC or consoles. Having Gameloft games beamed directly to your TV doesn’t sound too shabby — hopefully the graphics scale up sufficiently to still look good on a big TV. I wouldn’t expect the sort of quality you might get out of a PS3, though, especially since Gameloft games on iOS don’t usually break $10 and they’d have to be downloaded, so a smaller file size is better.