UK developer iFone has signed an exclusive deal with Infogrames, the parent company of Atari. iFone's developers are working to recreate some of the classic Atari hits in a format that will run on Java and/or EPOC based cell phones.

iFone has plans to begin releasing Java enabled games starting September. Enda Carey, marketing manager at iFone, says that the game will be available on a pay-per-play basis. A cell phone which is being used to store and play one of these games will have little memory to do anything else so the game will need to be deleted once the user is finished playing. Each download of the game is expected to cost 50p(US$0.70).

In order to play one of these downloadable games you will need to purchase a mobile phone capable of running Java2 MicroEdition. Currently there are only about 3 million of these handsets currently in use, but Nokia is embarking on a plan to sell 100 million Java enabled handsets by the end of 2003.