Astro Boy SNAPs to it

Tezuka is to take classic manga character Astro Boy to Nokia’s multiplayer games platform.

Astro Boy Game Flight and Astro Boy Reversi are planned to be available for download in Europe in 2008, with future rollouts under development.

Nokia’s SNAP (Scalable Network Application Package) platform gives developers the tools to make Java-based multiplayer games with community features including chat, rankings, friend lists.

Nokia offers the platform to operators and other content providers and a managed service solution, with agreements in place with SINA in China, Singtel in Singapore and Smartone in Hong Kong. SNAP games are also embedded in Nokia handsets shipping in Europe.

Tezuka Productions, a copyright holder of more than 700 manga titles created by manga artist Osamu Tezuka, is engaged in character licensing and animation production based on Astro Boy and Black Jack.

D3P and G-mode has also recently signed up as SNAP developer partners.