Motorola on Friday launched its first "online-game-playing mobile phone" in China.

Working together with Shanda Interactive Entertainment, Motorola modified its E680 to E680G to fit the online gaming requirement. Shanda Interactive Entertainment will provide 'World of Legend' and 'Magical Land' online role playing games that can be installed on E680G. The D-pad at the bottom will act as the navigation pad, and the 2 buttons on top will be the game button. Unless the game support landscape mode, it iwll be quite strange to control with 2 buttons on top.

"This is our first online game on a handset," Ian Chapman-Banks, Motorola's North Asia general manager of marketing and business development for mobile devices.

While Motorola do not earn a penny from the monthly game access subscription, they will make the profit from the handset sales only. Shanda instead, will charge as low as $3.76 USD per month. This does not including the wireless data connection charge.

'We don't have a target because no one has ever done this before -- we are hoping that we will give our users a better experience and we will gain customer loyalty,' said Ian Chapman-Banks, Motorola vice president and general manager for Northeast Asia marketing. Motorola also launched a online gaming portal in China and hosted over 350 java games.

Source