Hasbro Interactive to Ship E-mail Games

Hasbro Interactive next month will release Em@il Games, a set of titles designed for two-player interaction via Windows-based e-mail programs.

The first SKUs in the series will appear February 5, and Hasbro is touting the launch event as Em@il Games Day. Copies of the first three games, Battleship Em@il Game, Scrabble Em@il Game and Grand Master Chess Em@il Game, will be distributed free in New York City and will also be available for downloading from the Internet. The games will reach retail stores later in February, the company said.++

The Em@il Games run on Windows-based e-mail programs. Users install the games and follow prompts to enter their names, e-mail addresses, and those of the opponent. After adding an optional text message and opening the game with a first move, the player sends all the information to Hasbro's game server. The second player's computer receives the setup program along with the first player's move. Prompts direct the opponent through the installation and play and the process continues through the game, with each player sending his or her moves back and forth via e-mail. The game board, complete with the opponent's move, arrives in the electronic message.

Each move is sent through a Hasbro Interactive game server, and players can have different e-mail programs as long as they are Windows based. The games will not work on Apple computers or between Macs and PCs, the company said. There are no plans to create an Apple version of these games as yet, officials said.

According to the company, 11 games will be released in 1999. Expected titles include golf, poker and football. Each game will sell at retail for approximately $15.

Curt Burgess, software buyer for Hastings Entertainment, Amarillo, Texas, said, "What's nice about Hasbro is they're trying to break into new markets. They're taking their core concept, which is family entertainment, and expanding it."

Hasbro also announced the launch of games for the Windows CE platform. Four games, Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit and Slingo, are expected to be released in March at street prices around $30 each. The games will take up approximately 350KB to 950KB of memory, depending on the CE device and the game installed, a game producer said.