Pluto’s Ocean Interactive (POI) held the first press conference of 2010 on Wednesday to announce upcoming plans for 2010, including upcoming releases of One World: Existence, Media Party and BlueOS, along with giving details regarding dropping several platforms throughout the year and replace them with Android. “There were a record number of rumors [in 2009] and we only hold four press conferences a year, that’s not enough time to clear [up all the rumors] that populate the internet”, says a spokesman for POI, “Google statistics have shown over 25 million hits [in 2009] for One World alone”.
There have been rumors populating across blogs since July about POI dropping platforms, claiming they plan to be exclusive to the iPhone in 2010. Currently POI supports the iPhone (as a primary platform), BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Mac OSX and Windows, but it’s now official that will change in 2010. Beginning March 1 POI will drop Windows and Windows Mobile platforms, followed by BlackBerry and Mac OSX a month later and plans to add Android development June 1. It’s likely that POI will add Android, they have already announced an upcoming release for the platform later in 2010.
POI made an official announcement regarding the upcoming first person shooter/sniper game, One World: Existence (formally ONE), that’s gained alot of attention by iPhone and Android users. “We fully intend to release One World [Existence] to the U.S. and Canadian markets” says a spokesman for POI, “[One World] will be available exclusively for the iPhone and consumers can expect a release around March for Canadian users and September for the U.S.”. There are unconfirmed reports that POI will release a teaser (or lite) version of One World to the U.S. around April that will give consumers a preview of what’s coming. “It’s very unlikely that [POI] is planning a One World release for Android, they have a great relationship with Apple and have agreements for the iPhone until 2012, so maybe next time around” says a iPhone Gaming Reviews Analysts.
There has also been an official announcement that Media Party will be released to the U.S. later this year, which allows users to download music, movies, TV shows, books and games to their devices and play it all in one convenient media player. Media Party is expected to be released for iPhone in June and Android in September, due to copyright laws POI has claimed that Media Party will only be released in the U.S. and does not have plans for a global release at this time. Unconfirmed reports claim that prices will be lower than iTunes; a song will cost 79 cents, movies will be $1 to rent for 24 hours or $3-$5 to buy, TV shows will range from free to $2 and books range from $1 to $4. Unconfirmed reports across blogs now claim that Media Party will also offer streaming TV and On Demand services from networks like NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, Nickelodeon, Mtv, USA, Spike, HBO, among others.
Bloggers didn’t waste much time last year getting the new Operating System (OS) rumors started again, in 2008 POI claimed they were working on a new OS that would be available for PC’s and Mac’s, but that never happened. In 2009 rumors began appearing claiming POI is developing a new OS for the iPhone platform, and despite previously believed reasons, the new OS will allow for further customization and increase output of the device. According to POI, BlueOS will sit on the top layer of the existing iPhone OS and will be under a megabyte in size to ensure it won’t bog down the system, just the opposite actually it’s expected to increase speeds by atleast 1.4 times.
POI executives have made it crystal clear that One World will be released exclusively for the iPhone, same with BlueOS but did announce that Media Party should be expected on Android and iPhone. Media Party will be available across a variety of carriers including AT&T, T Mobile, Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, Cricket, etc, “any network that has a device that runs on Android, and obviously the iPhone, will have access to these services” says a spokesman for POI, “it will offer a wide variety of media for millions of users, the market is going to either blow up or explode in the carriers’ faces”. What’s that mean? Most are familiar with AT&T’s data network problems due to iPhone users, some analysts fear that it could happen to all the networks if an application like this launched because of the extensive data usage.
Besides a record number of rumors that appeared in 2009, profits also hit a record number although the official number is not being released at this time. Analysts believe that POI banked nearly $500,000 in 2009 and it’s very likely [if these three applications launch as planned] POI could raise profits four-fold in 2010, most market analysts believe that iPhone and Android development is where the money is today, dumping older platforms like Windows Mobile and BlackBerry is a necessity especially in small business environments.
